Charles Stross > Quotes

“Gene police! You! Out of the pool, now!”
― Charles Stross

“Like the famous mad philosopher said, when you stare into the void, the void stares also; but if you cast into the void, you get a type conversion error. (Which just goes to show Nietzsche wasn't a C++ programmer.)”
― Charles Stross

“--but I find her personality annoying. It's like being molested by a sleeping bag that speaks in Comic Sans with little love-hearts over the i's.”
― Charles Stross, Saturn's Children

“Any civilization where the main symbol of religious veneration is a tool of execution is a bad place to have children.”
― Charles Stross, Toast

“Idiots emit bogons, causing machinery to malfunction in their presence. System administrators absorb bogons, letting machinery work again.”
― Charles Stross, The Atrocity Archives

“Steampunk is nothing more than what happens when Goths discover brown.”
― Charles Stross

“Nothing stands for content-free corporate bullshit quite like PowerPoint. And that's just scratching the surface...”
― Charles Stross

“Christmas: the one time of year when you can’t avoid the nuts in your family muesli.”
― Charles Stross, Overtime

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sane employee in possession of his wits must be in want of a good manager.”
― Charles Stross, The Fuller Memorandum

“MINUS TEN POINTS FOR PUBLIC NUDITY.”
― Charles Stross

“We are Bay Aryans from Berkeley: prepare to be reengineered in an attractive range of color schemes for your safety and comfort!”
― Charles Stross, On Her Majesty's Occult Service

“The encapsulated bird your conspirators sent you to fetch. The sterilized male chicken with the Creator DNA sequences. The plot capon. Where is it?”
― Charles Stross, Saturn's Children

“Politics is shit; it corrupts everything it touches...”
― Charles Stross, Saturn's Children

“The European Parliament responded by focusing on corporate governance. If corporations wanted to be legal citizens they could damned well shoulder the responsibilities of good citizenship as well as the benefits. Social as well as financial audits were the order of the day. Directives outlining standards for corporate citizenship were drafted and a lucrative niche for a new generation of management consultants emerged - those who could look at an organization and sound a warning if its structure rewarded pathological behaviour.”
― Charles Stross, Rule 34

“It’s like being molested by a sleeping bag that speaks in Comic Sans with little love-hearts over the i’s.”
― Charles Stross, Saturn's Children

“You've just spent an entire prehistoric human lifetime as an ice ghoul and people are needling you for having too many arms?" I shake my head. "I just assume you have a good reason.”
― Charles Stross

“Some say the Internet is for porn but you know that in truth the Internet is for spam.”
― Charles Stross, Rule 34

“Unfortunately it's also true to say that good management is a bit like oxygen - it's invisible and you don't notice its presence until it's gone, and then you're sorry.”
― Charles Stross, The Fuller Memorandum

“Bob loses saving throw vs. shiny with a penalty of -5. Bob takes 2d8 damage to the credit card”
― Charles Stross, The Fuller Memorandum

“I was raised thinking that moral and ethical standards are universals that apply equally to everyone. And these values aren't easily compatible with the kind of religion that posits a Creator. To my way of thinking, an omnipotent being who sets up a universe in which thinking beings proliferate, grow old, and die (usually in agony, alone, and in fear) is a cosmic sadist.”
― Charles Stross, The Fuller Memorandum

“Accelerating to speeds faster than light was, of course, impossible. General relativity had made that clear
enough back in the twentieth century. However, since then a number of ways of circumventing the speed
limit had turned up; by now, there were at least six different known methods of moving mass or
information from A to B without going through c.”
― Charles Stross, Singularity Sky

“She turns and stalks off in search of other minions to intimidate, leaving you flexing your fingers and trying to decide whether you want to strangle her or go down on your knees and beg for lessons.”
― Charles Stross, Halting State

“Britain is relying on you, Bob, so try not to make your usual hash of things.”
― Charles Stross, The Jennifer Morgue

“Jest upalny letni wtorek. Stoi na placu przed dworcem Centraal, ma włączone gałki oczne. Kanał skrzy się słońcem, wokół śmigają skutery i rowerzyści-kamikadze, ze wszystkich stron trajkocą turyści. Plac pachnie wodą, ziemią, rozgrzanym metalem i spalinami z zimnych katalizatorów, jak pierdnięciem; w tle podzwaniają tramwaje, nad głową fruwają ptaki. ”
― Charles Stross, Accelerando