Neal Stephenson Quotes
As a fantasy writer, he was not highly regarded ('one cannot call him profoundly mediocre without venturing so far out on the critical limb as to bend it to the ground,' 'so derivative that the reader loses track of who he’s ripping off,' 'to say he is tin-eared would render a disservice to a blameless citizen of the periodic table of the elements').
Quotes to Explore
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Things are simple, it is us human beings that make it difficult.
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I get some heat for what English people call 'overproduction.' I don't think my older stuff was overproduced, but I do think that sound has dated.
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I think, from the very beginning, I always knew that I needed to get out of Malaysia and do my thing somewhere else.
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We all know the Navy is never wrong, but in this case it was a little weak on being right.
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My mum has lived in Australia for 22 years now, and we have a rocky relationship. But at the same time it's one I want to maintain. I need her to be my mum. The relationship took a lot of rebuilding.
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It is possible that the digital world may change the need for physical branches. We will continue to add branches incrementally, but we will reach a point - whether it is 1,500, 1,800 or 2,000 branches - where we will say enough is enough.
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We never have business meals at El Bulli. If it's about business, you're probably not paying much attention to the food.
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I always try to look for the hidden face of the character, the hidden face that we all have.
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I know what I can do so it doesn't bother me what other people think or their opinion on the situation.
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Always follow your own path.
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Letters have been found with my name on assassination lists.
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I used to play football all the time. In the U.S., people don't play football, so I had to learn basketball. Looking back, that's what I like about my life - doing new things, having a new perspective.
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I am not the sort of woman who would wear high heels with a bathing suit. Let's get that straight right now.
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I'll probably always be 'Timothy Spall's son' and it's something I'm proud of. Maybe one day as well as that, they'll say of Timothy Spall that 'He's Rafe Spall's dad'.
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You have to love your children unselfishly. That's hard. But it's the only way.
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As much as we thirst for approval we dread condemnation.
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The relationship between renewable energy sources and the communities we expect to host them must be appropriate and sustainable and, above all, acceptable to local people.
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It sometimes happens and will sometimes happen again that I forget who I am and strut before my eyes, like a stranger.
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It's important to over-deliver on the quality of the books as far as depth and content. It's not worth it to cut out 50 pages just because it would be a little bit cheaper.
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I've learned lately that no one is going to hand me a permission slip and tell me to take time out for me.
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The higher processes are all processes of simplification. The novelist must learn to write, and then he must unlearn it; just as the modern painter learns to draw, and then learns when utterly to disregard his accomplishment, when to subordinate it to a higher and truer effect.
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As a fantasy writer, he was not highly regarded ('one cannot call him profoundly mediocre without venturing so far out on the critical limb as to bend it to the ground,' 'so derivative that the reader loses track of who he’s ripping off,' 'to say he is tin-eared would render a disservice to a blameless citizen of the periodic table of the elements').
