John Twelve Hawks Quotes

You need to study history, Doctor. All great changes are based on pain and destruction.

One of the pleasures of writing novels is that my characters usually do something. But in real life we often stay locked in a situation that we know is painful or wrong.

If privacy had a gravestone it might read: “Don't Worry. This Was for Your Own Good.”

Life is dangerous. That's what makes it interesting.

It's all just fear and distraction. Fear will get people into our Virtual Panopticon and then we'll keep them happy. People will be free to take antidepressant drugs, go into debt, and stare at their television sets. Society might seem disorganized, but it will be very stable. Every few years we'll pick a different mannequin to give speeches from the White House Rose Garden.

Children defer to adults because they’re older, bigger and stronger. But it’s also because children believe that adults have reasons for what they do. There was nothing magical about the Pied Piper of Hamelin’s flute. The Piper acted like he knew where he was going and the children followed him into the dark mountains where they were never seen again.

All the news stories were telling me to be frightened. All the commercials were telling me to buy things I didn´t need. The message was that people could only be passive victims or consumers.

Many physicists these days sound like the Delphic oracle - with equations.

The Turing Test tried to make a distinction between humans and machines. But these days Shadow programs like Edward and Laura can be programmed to say "I love you" or imitate other emotions. If a machine wanted to act like a human, then it had to deny the truth. Lying, not love, is the fundamental indication of humanity.

Half the things you've been taught in school are just convenient fictions. History is a puppet show for childish minds.

You don't need to watch everyone if everyone believes they're being watched.

It took me years to realize that a computer would never truly be able to say cogito ego sum although dozens of lurid Hollywood movies about robots want to leave that impression. A computer thinks....that is, it realizes it has been switched on...but it doesn't know it exists.

Modern authority is based on a system of lies that are accepted by the general population. If you pull away the curtain and show the reality of power, people are motivated to question the fictions that govern their own lives.

Her face kept changing and that bothered me as well. Why were human beings so unstable? The door and the curtains and the supply cabinet didn't continually change their appearance.'

All language – everything we say – is just an approximation of reality.