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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They've said I want to direct pictures. I couldn't direct traffic.
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What works for me is a little bit of training and sensible eating. You know, the Cameron Diaz's of the world put a lot of effort into it! But you can't have it all - I like going out for dinner with my husband; I like meeting my mates at Starbucks!
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If you're going to make a statement, I think you should write it in prose and make a statement. If you have characters who are mouthpieces for a point of view, then you have to be very clever about disguising it.
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I think they should take everyone who works for The National Enquirer and the Star, and everyone who works for Us Weekly, and put them all to work looking for terrorists. I think they would find the terrorists. All of them. It would be genius!
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Some of you may have been hoping that today I would speak about Lucien Bouchard's latest economic theories. But I have decided to spare him for the time being: after all, he is a man.
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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').