Cryptonomicon

by Neal Stephenson

“What’s an electronic banknote look like, Randy?” “Like any other digital thing: a bunch of bits.” “Doesn’t that make it kind of easy to counterfeit?” “Not if you have good crypto,” Randy says. “Which we do.” “How did you get it?” “By hanging out with maniacs.” “What kind of maniacs?” “Maniacs who think that having good crypto is of near-apocalyptic importance.”

“Gold is where you find it.”

Hammerdown Systems, which is a Seattle-based record label in which Chester is a major investor. It is a second-generation Seattle-scene record label; all of its artists are young people who came to Seattle after they graduated from college in search of the legendary Seattle music scene and discovered that it didn’t really exist

overestimating the intelligence of the enemy is, if anything, more dangerous than underestimating it.

There sure is a lot of bright stuff in the jungle. Randy figures that, in the natural world, anything that is colored so brightly must be some kind of serious evolutionary badass.