Rainbows End Quotes

“So much technology, so little talent.”
― Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End

“While We are out of Touch or How to Survive and Prosper during the Next Thirty Minutes by Your Friend, the Mysterious Stranger”
― Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End

“But he would flail and flail—and when the command did work, the success gave him a pitiful spike of joy and he worked even harder. Like a boy with a new computer game. Or a trained rat.”
― Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End: A Novel with One Foot in the Future

“In the modern world, success came from having the largest possible educated population and providing those hundreds of millions of creative people with credible freedom.”
― Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End: A Novel with One Foot in the Future

“Mr. Sharik, you don't understand the purpose of the stacks. You don't go into the stacks expecting the precise answer to your burning-question-of-the-moment. It doesn't work that way. In all the thousands of times that I've gone hunting in the stacks, I've seldom found exactly what I was looking for. You know what I did find? I found the books on close-by topics. I found answers to questions that I never thought to ask. Those answers took me in new directions and were almost always more valuable than whatever I originally had in mind.”
― Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End

“The beginning of trust has to be an in-person contact.”
― Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End: A Novel with One Foot in the Future

“Some people make their own problems. And they never stop hurting themselves and messing up the people around them. When that’s the case, then you shouldn’t keep hurting yourself for them.”
― Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End: A Novel with One Foot in the Future

“modern states realized that success did not come from having the largest armies or the most favorable tariffs or the most natural resources—or even the most advanced industries. In the modern world, success came from having the largest possible educated population and providing those hundreds of millions of creative people with credible freedom.”
― Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End: A Novel with One Foot in the Future

“if you watch trillions of things, you will often see one-in-a-million coincidences.”
― Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End: A Novel with One Foot in the Future

“There was lots of noise and action, but if you listened carefully, you could tell that the kids in the bushes were actually playing in other universes, all choreographed so neither players nor equipment would get in each other's way. She had picked the right cover; classical anime was just too highbrow for these dorks.”
― Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End