Neal Stephenson Quotes

'They knew many things but had no idea why. And strangely this made them more, rather than less, certain that they were right.'

Neal Stephenson

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Quotes to Explore

• I have 179 children that I take care of full-time: close to 40 in Uganda and the rest in Sudan.

  

  Sam Childers
  • Time
  • Children
  • Rest

• I was very influenced by movies; I was very influenced by a world that had a sense of dream.

  

  Ralph Lauren
  • World
  • Dream
  • Movies

• Don't most of us agree that providing school meals to kids who need them is an overwhelmingly good thing? After all, nutrition is essential to proper cognitive development.

  

  Laura Moser
  • Good
  • School
  • Kids

• I don't mean to offend anybody, but I think that we get a lot of scientists now who are bent into a system, and we lose some of their boldness by that. Obviously, you have to learn the ropes, but I think it's important to do that without hammering out the radicalness that makes innovation happen.

  

  Taylor Wilson
  • Important
  • Learn
  • Innovation

• I'm quite fluent in Telugu now, but there's a difference between talking and dubbing. While dubbing, the diction must be in sync with the emotion in the scene and would impact my performance.

  

  Rakul Preet Singh
  • Emotion
  • Performance
  • Impact

• To me hair dressing means shape. It's very important that the foundations should be right.

  

  Vidal Sassoon
  • Important
  • Me
  • Hair

• I spent years studying the teachings of Patanjali, and he reminded us several thousand years ago that when we are steadfast - which means that we never slip in our abstention of thoughts of harm directed toward others - then all living creatures cease to feel enmity in our presence.

  

  Wayne Dyer
  • Thoughts
  • Presence
  • Studying

• Leeks, like other oniony things, reach a certain peak when fried. It's the subtle sweetness that suddenly becomes evident and works so well with their creamy texture.

  

  Yotam Ottolenghi
  • Reach
  • Sweetness
  • Peak

• I learn something not because I have to, but because I really want to. That's the same view I have for performing. I'm performing because I really want to, not because I have to bring bread back home.

  

  Yo-Yo Ma
  • Home
  • Learn
  • Same

• As for my own music, I've never written a book about it. I'm not pedagogical... When I write an abstract piano sonata or a concerto, I write what I feel. I'm not a self-conscious composer.

  

  Samuel Barber
  • Music
  • Book
  • Piano

• I know that John Adams has had a very hard time directing French ensembles.

  

  Gavin Bryars
  • Time
  • Know
  • Hard

• There's obviously nothing wrong with selling your art - only an idiot with a trust fund would tell you otherwise. But it's confusing to know how far you should take it.

  

  Banksy
  • Art
  • Know
  • Trust

• There is nothing more exciting than having a life devoted to fundamental knowledge and to contributing to advance the borders of knowledge.

  

  Fabiola Gianotti
  • Life
  • Knowledge
  • Nothing

• There's usually one piece in 'Vanity Fair' every month that grabs me, but when it presents hatchet jobs without substantiation to impress its liberal friends, I laugh first, then toss.

  

  Dan Jenkins
  • Friends
  • Laugh
  • Fair

• I started singing very early. I was six or seven years old, and I was singing along to TV commercials and figuring out, 'Oh, hey, I can sing in tune. This is really cool.' But the songwriting thing came much much later, when I was 19 years old.

  

  Yuna
  • Cool
  • Singing
  • Old

• A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's: She changes it more often.

  

  Oliver Herford
  • Mind
  • Man
  • Woman

• My dad grew up in a mud hut and studied by candlelight. He was 14 when he got a scholarship to Russia. He was super clever - the cleverest person. He landed in 5ft of snow, and was alone at 14, studying science and engineering. He didn't have a bed, and he slept on a table.

  

  M.I.A.
  • Up
  • Science
  • Dad

• I had an idea when I was 18 or 19 to start tutoring people, like the way that people get tutored in saxophone or guitar, but for production. I really enjoyed it, but I don't have time for that any more.

  

  Flume
  • People
  • Time
  • Start

• When I was in my teenage years, I went to sign up as a cadet entrant to the police force but was at the very last moment rejected, just as I was about to sign my name on the dotted line. I won't get into why that happened, but it was a moment where it could've been predetermined then that I was off to become a policeman.

  

  Ian Anderson
  • Up
  • Why
  • Moment

• The idea that somebody else is going to swoop down and play the fairy godmother role is pretty unlikely, so why not take care of yourself?

  

  Victoria Moran
  • Why
  • Pretty
  • Care

• You learn over years of expeditions that having faith, and putting one foot in front of the other, you do end up pulling off climbs that seem completely impossible. There's a certain beauty to that. It has an allure.

  

  Jimmy Chin
  • Up
  • Faith

• I … understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has primarily to do with distractions … Women's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life or saintly life.

  

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  • Life
  • Women
  • Children

• Nothing good ever comes of violence.

  

  Martin Luther
  • Good
  • Violence

• 'They knew many things but had no idea why. And strangely this made them more, rather than less, certain that they were right.'

  

  Neal Stephenson
  • Why