Charles Stross Quotes

The dirty little secret of the intelligence-gathering job is that information doesn’t just want to be free—it wants to hang out on street corners wearing gang colors and terrorizing the neighbors.

Apparently you’re only allowed to demolish Wolverhampton if you’re a property developer like Donald Trump. Crawling eldritch horrors don’t get planning permission unless they’re Trump’s hairpiece.

GP services (and other companies) have been lobbying Congress to privatize the US Postal Service for years now. There are any number of beneficiaries: the private parcel carrier services, the phone and cable networks and internet service providers, and the obvious corporate interests who can do without the nonprofit competition. And there are any number of politicians who can make political hay by being seen to cut government spending on a basic infrastructure service that doesn’t turn a profit and that isn’t able to defend itself politically. Nothing has officially happened yet – the inertia of the US government is astonishing – but it’s obvious that the fix is in: too many people want the post office to die.

Do you believe in angels, Robard?" he asked faintly.
"No, sir."
"Well, that's alright then, she must be a devil. Can deal with those, y'know."

We’re up the highway from Colorado Springs. The holy rollers are big in Colorado. Mostly they’re harmless, ’long as you’re not a young woman in search of an abortion.

Never attribute to incompetence that which can be adequately explained by jet lag.

Contingency time is useless wasted time, right until you need it.

What are the consequences when the government, the media, and the leaders of commerce all speak with one voice? Why, it means that if you hold opinions other than the ones you are told to, you are out of step, and if so, it is best to bite your tongue and be silent. The most efficient kind of censorship isn’t the heavy-handed black inking of the secret policeman: it’s the self-censorship we impose on ourselves when we’re afraid that if we say what we think everyone around us will think us strange.

The trouble is, you can ignore history—but history won’t necessarily ignore you.

Superficial appearances are misleading precisely because, so much of the time, they’re accurate.

People didn’t always follow their best interests. Human beings were distressingly bad at risk analysis, lousy with hidden motivations and neuroses, anything but the clean rational actors that economists or diplomats wanted so desperately to believe in, and diplomats had to go by capabilities, not intentions.

A man so wrapped in secrecy that his shadow doesn’t have a high enough security clearance to stick to his heels.

We have a problem, sir."
"What do you mean, a problem?" demanded the Admiral. "We're not supposed to have problems—that's the enemy's job!"

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."

Let’s just say that you can’t always trust the historical record and move swiftly on.