Vernor Vinge Quotes

Poor humans; they will all die.
"Poor us; we will not."

Did you ever think? Old-fashioned writing is the ultimate in context tagging. It’s passive, informative, and present exactly where you need it.

There had been an era of ubiquitous law enforcement, and some kind of distributed terror.

Peregrine Wickwrackrum was of two minds about evil: when enough rules get broken, sometimes there is good amid the carnage.

Viki was awed by all the incredible quackery. Daddy thought such things were amusing—“like religion but not so deadly.”

Effective translation of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator program.

Our system is founded on the Concept of Chaos. The universe is basically a dark and Unhappy place—a place where evil and injustice and randomness rule. The ironic thing is that the very act of organization creates the potential for even greater ruin. Social organizations have a natural tendency to become monopolistic and inflexible. When they finally break down, it is a catastrophic debacle. So, we must except a great deal of disorder and violence in our lives if we are to avoid a complete blow up later.

I say, let’s learn more and then speculate.

Well, what do you know," Pham said. "Butterflies in jackboots.

The essence of real creativity is a certain playfulness, a flitting from idea to idea without getting bogged down by fixated demands. Of course, you don’t always get what you thought you were asking for. From this era on, I think invention will be the parent of necessity—and not the other way around.

Wil wondered fleetingly if she might be psychopathic, and not merely young and naive.

That was the old saying: Once your secret is outed anywhere, however briefly, it is outed forever. “Oh, I don’t know,” said Juan. “The way to cover a slip is to embellish it, hide it in all sorts of fake secrets.”

He was guided by what he saw rather than by what he wanted to believe.

“We think the governance has opted for ubiquitous law enforcement.”
Pham whistled softly. Now every embedded computing system, down to a child’s rattle, was a governance utility. It was the most extreme form of social control ever invented. “So now they have to run everything.” The notion was terribly seductive to the authoritarian mind.

Sometimes the biggest disasters aren’t noticed at all—no one’s around to write horror stories.