Zones of Thought Quotes

“Be cool, dear student. The heart of manipulation is to empathize without being touched”
― Vernor Vinge, Zones of Thought: A Fire Upon the Deep / A Deepness in the Sky

“Flenser had none of Steel’s killing temper and fragile dignity. Flenser could chat for casual pleasure, all the while mixing truth with lies. One of his greatest talents was empathy; no sadist can aspire to perfection without that diagnostic ability”
― Vernor Vinge, Zones of Thought: A Fire Upon the Deep / A Deepness in the Sky

“And so it went. Tens of thousands of messages, hundreds of points of view. It was not called the Net of a Million Lies for nothing”
― Vernor Vinge, Zones of Thought: A Fire Upon the Deep / A Deepness in the Sky

“One thing about the Net: the multiple, automatic translations often disguised the fundamental alienness of participants. Behind the chatty, colloquial postings, there were faraway realms, so misted by distance and difference that communication was impossible—even though it might take a while to realize the fact”
― Vernor Vinge, Zones of Thought: A Fire Upon the Deep / A Deepness in the Sky

“you’ve worked out the numbers. To do that we’d essentially have to re-create the sun. Do you have any idea of the energy involved? I remember what it took to support our diggers after Dark during the War. We used more fuel in”
― Vernor Vinge, Zones of Thought: A Fire Upon the Deep / A Deepness in the Sky