Sign in with Facebook
Apex Quotes
Apex
by
Ramez Naam7,763 ratings, 4.17 average rating, 513 reviews
Open Preview
Apex Quotes
Showing 1-21 of 21
“in a surveillance state it was vital to reserve the ability to turn a blind eye to certain people at certain times.”
― Apex
― Apex
“Breathe. Slow. Observe. Break the link between sensation and reaction. Breathe into the gap between them. Blind reaction is attachment. Blind reaction is slavery. Freedom exists in the gap. Choice exists in the gap.”
― Apex
― Apex
“Funny how the experience of one person could have such an impact on billions of others. Pryce wondered what that said about the way the world was run. Nothing good, she was sure of that. All politics is personal, Pryce thought. It turns out all policy is personal, too.”
― Apex
― Apex
“But remember, anger cannot be fought with anger. Rage cannot be fought with rage. No amount of signal processing can cancel out suffering, or craving, or aversion. If you want to help a mind – or a world – find peace, do exactly that. Help it find peace.”
― Apex
― Apex
“Hard work guarantees you nothing. But laziness assures failure. Work hard, or you have only yourself to blame.”
― Apex
― Apex
“People don’t demand a say in how they’re governed because they want to be rich. They demand it when they already are rich and crave something more.”
― Apex
― Apex
“the pawn seldom knows what the king has planned. Remember that. The pawn seldom knows.”
― Apex
― Apex
“Rules of responsible drug use, he thought.
Know your substance before you start.
Know your dose.
Safe, comfortable setting.
He shook his head. They'd struck out on all three of those.”
― Apex
Know your substance before you start.
Know your dose.
Safe, comfortable setting.
He shook his head. They'd struck out on all three of those.”
― Apex
“to have the right future, we need to lay down the right past, for that future to build on.”
― Apex
― Apex
“Breathe. Slow. Observe. Break the link between sensation and reaction. Breathe into the gap between them. Blind reaction is attachment. Blind reaction is slavery. Freedom exists in the gap. Choice exists in the gap. I exist in the gap. Let go of attachment to my fear, he told himself. Let go of attachment to myself. Let go of attachment to my life. That’s the secret to living.”
― Apex
― Apex
“You will not be punished for your anger, Buddha had said. You will be punished by your anger.”
― Apex
― Apex
“Yuguo fell apart, into a thousand little pieces. He felt it happen, fragments of his mind detaching from the rest, splitting off, becoming their own, being mapped by Nexus. Here was Yuguo’s knowledge of coding, his comprehension of data structures, of objects and methods, of intents and game players, of threads and loops and conditions. Here was football Yuguo, the precise way his left foot grounded into the grass and his hips swiveled and his arm balanced as his right foot shot forward to kick the checked ball at the goal. Here was Yuguo’s shy lust for girls, the patterns his eyes drew over their curves when he saw them, the anxiety that struck him dumb when they were near. Here was Yuguo’s despair that had led him to this room, his quiet dread that his country and the world were getting worse instead of better, that the future was one of slow strangulation at the electronic hands of smiling tame AIs with famous faces, their forked tongues lapping out of the viewscreens to feed saccharine to the masses, the old men who’d always ruled China laughing and holding their leashes. Here were the words a young woman had said to him just minutes ago. “Critical mass. Weak apart, strong together.” Here were her eyes, fiery eyes, hanging in space. Here was her name: Lifen. Then those pieces fell apart, into smaller pieces, which fell apart into fragments even smaller: Yuguo’s sensation of red. Yuguo’s concept of 1 and 0. Yuguo’s left thumb. The sound in Yuguo’s head when he heard the third note of his favorite pop song. Yuguo’s yes. Yuguo’s no. Yuguo’s and. Yuguo’s or. Yuguo’s xor. Yuguo’s now. Yuguo’s future. Yuguo’s past. He could see himself now. He was a golden statue of Yuguo, immobile, one foot in front of the other, standing in a space of white light. But the statue wasn’t solid, it was made of grains, millions of grains, flecks of gold dust, millions of parts of him. And as he watched they were separating, pulling gradually apart, so that he was no longer a single entity but a cloud, a fog, a fog of Yuguo, and if a strong wind came, he would just blow away, and if the pieces split any more he knew there wouldn’t be any such thing as Yuguo left at all. Yuguo’s fear. Yuguo’s end. And then the pieces rushed together, and he was inside that statue, he was that statue, and he was all of it, 1 and 0, yes and no, future and past, sound and sight, football and coding. He was all of it. He was whole. He was a mind. I’m Yuguo, he realized. I’m him. I’m me. I’m Yuguo! His eyes snapped open. He was in his body. His body made of molten gold. No, not gold, flesh and blood.”
― Apex
― Apex
“Rangan came to the surface in the mid-afternoon of Inauguration Day, in the trunk of a car driven by a terrified aide of Senator Barbara Engels, Chairwoman of the Senate Select Oversight Committee on Homeland Security.”
― Apex
― Apex
“In the less than two years since Crux was released, science has continued to advance. In 2013, a pair of researchers at the University of Washington demonstrated that one human being could control part of another human being’s body via a non-invasive brain-computer interface. The two researchers, Rajesh Rao and Andrea Stocco, played a video game together, in a very peculiar way. Rajesh Rao, in one building on campus, could see the video game display, but had no controls. Andrea Stocco, in another building across the campus, had the controller (a fire button), but couldn’t see the display. When Professor Rao wanted to shoot, he would think about shooting, and an EEG cap on his skull would pick up his intent and transmit it across campus. There, a magnetic stimulator on Andrea Stocco’s head would send a pulse through part of Professor Stocco’s motor cortex, causing his finger to twitch and hit the fire button.”
― Apex
― Apex
“Breathe.
Slow.
Observe.
Break the link between sensation and reaction.
Breathe into the gap between them.
Blind reaction is attachment.
Blind reaction is slavery.
Freedom exists in the gap.
Choice exists in the gap.
I exist in the gap.”
― Apex
Slow.
Observe.
Break the link between sensation and reaction.
Breathe into the gap between them.
Blind reaction is attachment.
Blind reaction is slavery.
Freedom exists in the gap.
Choice exists in the gap.
I exist in the gap.”
― Apex
