The Quantum Thief Quotes

“The criminal is a creative artist; detectives are just critics.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“Suokaa anteeksi, mutta minun on nyt mentävä, jotta ehdin irstailla kyllikseni ennen kuin kuolen.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“Hell,’ I tell her, ‘is where all the interesting people are.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“A strange thing happens when you are very rich, even when one’s wealth is as artificial as in our society. You develop a solipsism of sorts. The world yields itself to your will. Everything becomes your reflection, and after a while looking into your own eyes is dull.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“Deep learning still comes from approximately ten thousand hours of work on any given subject.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“What is it about it, anyway? Stealing.’ ‘It’s …’ It’s an instinct, I want to say. ... It’s art. But she would not understand, so I merely repeat the old joke. ‘It’s about respecting other people’s property. I make it my property so that I can properly respect it.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“I don't care what your Oort woman wants you to steal for her," she says. "You already did your worst. You stole what could have been. From me and from yourself. And you can never have it back.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“I don’t understand people. I need to deduce things. I don’t know why anyone says or does anything if I don’t think about it.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“I always loved the way you are so quick to see everybody else as monsters.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“She smiles, displaying an uneven row of sugar cube teeth.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“You’re bigger than the toys. We are always bigger than the things we make. Put them away. Make something new with your life, with your own mind and hands.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“This is how it works. The exomemory stores data – all data – that the Oubliette gathers, the environment, senses, thoughts, everything. The gevulot keeps track of who can access what, in real time. It’s not just one public/private key pair, it’s a crazy nested hierarchy, a tree of nodes where each branch can only be unlocked by the root node. You meet someone and agree what you can share, what they can know about you, what you can remember afterwards.’ ‘Sounds complicated.’ ‘It is. The Martians have a dedicated organ for it.’ I tap my head. ‘A privacy sense. They feel what they are sharing, what is private and what isn’t. They also do something called co-remembering, sharing memories with others just by sharing the appropriate key with them. We just have the baby version. They give the visitors a bit of exomemory and an interface to it, reasonably well-defined. But there is no way we can appreciate the subtleties.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“It’s a Watch. A device that stores Time as quantum cash – unforgeable, uncopyable quantum states that have finite lifetimes, counterfeit-proof, measures the time an Oubliette citizen is allowed in a baseline human body. Also responsible for their encrypted channel to the exomemory. A very personal device.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“You never get used to the feeling of hot metal, entering your skull and exiting through the back of your head. It’s simulated in glorious detail. A burning train through your forehead, a warm spray of blood and brain on your shoulders and back, the sudden chill – and finally, the black, when things stop. The Archons of the Dilemma Prison want you to feel it. It’s educational. The Prison is all about education. And game theory: the mathematics of rational decision-making. When you are an immortal mind like the Archons, you have time to be obsessed with such things. And it is just like the Sobornost – the upload collective that rules the Inner Solar System – to put them in charge of their prisons. We play the same game over and over again, in different forms. An archetypal game beloved by economists and mathematicians. Sometimes it’s chicken: we are racers on an endless highway, driving at each other at high speeds, deciding whether or not to turn away at the last minute. Sometimes we are soldiers trapped in trench warfare, facing each other across no-man’s-land. And sometimes they go back to basics and make us prisoners – old-fashioned prisoners, questioned by hard-eyed men – who have to choose between betrayal and the code of silence. Guns are the flavour of today. I’m not looking forward to tomorrow.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“I merely repeat the old joke. ‘It’s about respecting other people’s property. I make it my property so that I can properly respect it.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“You are never in a prison unless you think you are”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“I see. I think you have me confused with someone else, I don’t really play games—’ The Eldest touches his shoulder. ‘I think what young Isidore is trying to say is that he doesn’t actually consider what he does a game.’ Isidore frowns. ‘Look, I’m not sure what Pixil has told you, but I’m an art history student. People call me a detective, but it is just problem-solving, really.’ Saying it makes the tzaddik’s rejection sting again. Sagewyn looks perplexed. ‘But how do you keep score? How do you level up?’ ‘Well, it’s not really about that. It’s more about … helping the victim, catching the perpetrator, making sure that they are brought to justice.’ Drathdor snorts into his beer, blowing some of it on his costume. ‘That’s disgusting.’ He wipes his mouth with his glove. ‘Absolutely disgusting. You mean you are some sort of toxic meme-zombie? Pixil brought you here? She touches you?’ He gives the Eldest a shocked look. ‘I’m amazed you allow this.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“There is another me in the remaining cell. He is wearing a white tennis shirt, shorts and oversized mirrorshades, lounging in a deck chair by a swimming pool. He has a book in his lap: Le Bouchon de cristal. One of my favorites, too. ‘It got you again,’ he says, not bothering to look up. ‘Again. What is that, three times in a row now? You should know by now that it always goes for tit-for-tat.’ ‘I almost got it this time.’ ‘That whole false memory of cooperation thing is a good idea,’ he says. ‘Except, you know, it will never work. The warminds have non-standard occipital lobes, non-sequential dorsal stream. You can’t fool it with visual illusions. Too bad the Archons don’t give points for effort.’ I blink. ‘Wait a minute. How do you know that, but I don’t?’ ‘Did you think you are the only le Flambeur in here? I’ve been around. Anyway, you need ten more points to beat it, so get over here and let me help you out.’ ‘Rub it in, smartass.’ I walk to the blue line, taking my first relieved breath of this round. He gets up as well, pulling his sleek automatic from beneath the book. I point a forefinger at him. ‘Boom boom,’ I say. ‘I cooperate.’ ‘Very funny,’ he says and raises his gun, grinning. My double reflection in his shades looks small and naked. ‘Hey. Hey. We’re in this together, right?’ And this is me thinking I had a sense of humor. ‘Gamblers and high rollers, isn’t that who we are?’ Something clicks. Compelling smile, elaborate cell, putting me at ease, reminding me of myself but somehow not quite right— ‘Oh fuck.’ Every prison has its rumours and monsters and this place is no different. I heard this one from a zoku renegade I cooperated with for a while: the legend of the anomaly. The All-Defector. The thing that never cooperates and gets away with it. It found a glitch in the system so that it always appears as you. And if you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust? ‘Oh yes,’ says the All-Defector, and pulls the trigger”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“Tell me one thing,’ Isidore says. ‘What was this place before?’ The Eldest pauses. An expression of sadness flickers across her serene face.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“The carriage lurches back and forth as the vehicle – the bastard child of a spider, a H. G. Wells war machine and a taxi – leaps over rooftops and clings to walls.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“How do you find out if there are shadowy forces manipulating people’s minds? You find a clean template, and make a before-and-after comparison.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“You are a policeman, yes? A sysadmin?”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief

“Whisky has always tasted like introspection to me, a quiet moment after taking a sip, the lingering aftertaste, inviting you to ponder upon the flavours on your tongue.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief