Charles Stross Quotes

Pay no attention to the gill slits and fins, they’re signs of grace. It’s come to a pretty pass when the bastard spawn of the Deep Ones turn into Presbyterian fundamentalists, hasn’t it?

What if he is a true believer, have you thought about that?"
"A true believer in what? The prosperity gospel? New Republican Jesus who rewards his faithful flock for their faith with the ability to make money fast? That's self-serving cant, and you know it. Wish-fulfillment as religion." A twitch of the cheek: Persephone unamused. "Don't get me started on the gap between the Vatican and their flock."

What about religion?"
"Religion is power, to these people. And power is religion, of course. If you're a humble believer set on doing your deity's will, then what are you doing spending the take on Lamborghinis and single malt? The real believers are running soup kitchens and emptying bedpans, trying to do good while the televangelists preaching the prosperity gospel are doing it to keep up the payments on the McMansion and the Roller."

We’re living through the end times, but not in any Biblical sense—the religions of the book have got their eschatology laughably wrong.

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."

Any sufficiently advanced lingerie is indistinguishable from a lethal weapon.

Ninety-eight percent of management work in this organization is routine. The other two percent is a tightrope walk over an erupting volcano without a safety net. Congratulations: here’s your balance pole.

What price an immortal soul, when booty beckons?

Time is the one thing money can’t buy.

Like I said: the only god I believe in is coming back. And when he arrives, I’ll be waiting with a shotgun.

I’m not one hundred percent clear on the clinical definition of death, but I’m pretty sure that lying trapped in my own unbreathing body meets some of the requirements.

Finally, as if all of that isn’t bad enough, the dead are rising.
This latter item, Alexei thinks, is deeply unfair. He’s a sergeant in Spetsgruppa “V”—a professional, in other words—and when he kills someone professionally he expects them to stay dead. These walking abominations are an insult to his competence.

Once is happenstance but twice is enemy action, and thrice is a fuck-up.

There is a philosophy by which many people live their lives, and it is this: life is a shit sandwich, but the more bread you've got, the less shit you have to eat.
These people are often selfish brats as kids, and they don't get better with age: think of the shifty-eyed smarmy asshole from the sixth form who grew up to be a merchant banker, or an estate agent, or one of the Conservative Party funny-handshake mine's-a-Rolex brigade.
(This isn't to say that all estate agents, or merchant bankers, or conservatives, are selfish, but these are ways of life that provide opportunities of a certain disposition to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Bear with me).
There is another philosophy by which people live their lives, and it goes thus: you will do as I say or I will hurt you.
It's petty authoritarianism, and it frequently runs in families. Dad's a dictator, Mum's henpecked, and the kids keep quiet if they know what's good for them—all the while soaking up the lesson that mindless obedience is the one safe course of action. These kids often rescue themselves, but some of them don't. They grow up to be thugs, insecure and terrified of uncertainty, intolerant and unable to handle back-chat, willing to use violence to get what they want.
Let me draw you a Venn diagram with the two circles on it, denoting set of individuals. They overlap: the greedy ones and the authoritarian ones. Let's shade the intersecting area in a different color, and label it: dangerous. Greed isn't automatically dangerous on its own, and petty authoritarians aren't usually dangerous outside their immediate vicinity—but when you combine the two, you get gangsters and dictators and hate-spewing preachers.
There is a third philosophy by which—thankfully—only a tiny minority of people live their lives. It's a bit harder to sum up, but it begins like this: in the beginning was the endless void, and the void spawned the Elder things, and we were created to be their slaves, and they're going to return to Earth in the near future, and it is only by willingly subordinating ourselves to their merest whim that we can hope to survive—
Now let me drop another circle on the diagram, and scribble in the tiny patch where it intersects with the other two circles, and label it in the deepest fuliginous black: here be monsters.

If there’s one thing extreme god-botherers of every stripe have in common, it’s that they don’t have any sense of humor at all where their beliefs are concerned.