Charles Stross Quotes

But if we run away, we are still going to be there. Sooner or later, we’ll have the same problem all over again; runaway intelligence augmentation, self-expression, engineered intelligences, whatever. Possibly that’s what happened out past the Böotes void—not a galactic-scale civilization, but a race of pathological cowards fleeing their own exponential transcendence. We carry the seeds of a singularity with us wherever we go, and if we try to excise those seeds, we cease to be human, don’t we?

There are two types of people in this world," Pete volunteers helpfully, "those who think there are only two types of people in the world, and everybody else." He sips his wine thoughtfully. "But the first kind don't put it that way. They usually think in terms of the saved and the damned, with themselves sitting pretty in the lifeboat." He manages to simultaneously look pained and resigned. "Sometimes they find their way out of the maze. But not very often."

In my experience, the best way to deal with such people is to politely agree with everything they say, then ignore them.

The Cold War was all about who could build the biggest refrigerator, wasn’t it?

Never underestimate the intrinsic, as opposed to ideological, conservatism of an idea like revolution once it’s got some momentum behind it.

Policing, as with all procedural jobs, expands to fill all the time and consume all the resources available for it.

I’ve never been so frightened for somebody in my life: I felt totally powerless. You can’t punch extradimensional parasites out of your boyfriend’s brain.

What happens if we don't do this?"
"I don't know. Probably we don't die. I mean, maybe probably. Possibly maybe probably."

Truly the jaws of irony are agape!

Venous blood isn’t really blue. In lipstick terms it’s dark plum, not crimson gloss.

They're too literal-minded," he said quietly. "All doing, no innovative thinking. They don't understand metaphors well; half of them think you're Baba Yaga returned, you know? We've been a, ah, stable culture too long. Patterns of belief, attitudes, get ingrained. When change comes, they are incapable of responding. Try to fit everything into their preconceived dogmas."

Humans are just barely intelligent tool users; Darwinian evolutionary selection stopped when language and tool use converged, leaving the average hairy meme carrier sadly deficient in smarts.

And she actually looks—well, I’m not sure how to describe her. Scary is such an inadequate word, don’t you think?

There’s always some idiot who thinks that after the revolution they’ll be the one sitting on top of the hill of corpses, dining on caviar served out of a bowl made from a chromed baby’s skull.

I’m not a politician, even though I play-act one when the boss tells me to—I’m allowed to change my mind when my understanding of the facts changes.