364 Quotes by Charles Stross

I passed through this stage years ago on Venus, where I was so unfashionable that eventually I almost convinced myself I no longer cared that nobody wanted me; but recent events have reawakened my need for intimacy.

If an idea is compelling enough it’ll stick in my head until I am forced to write it. If it’s forgettable, who cares?

It has so much character that it’s probably being hunted by a posse of typographers.

The Laundry field operations manual is notably short on advice for how to comport one’s self when being held prisoner aboard a mad billionaire necromancer’s yacht, other than the usual stern admonition to keep receipts for all expenses incurred in the line of duty.

There are good ways and bad ways to get my attention. Whacking on my ego with a crowbar will get my attention, sure, but it’s not going to leave me well disposed to the messenger.

Anyway, you don’t have to be terribly intelligent to complete a PhD,” Karim grumps. “You just need to be stupidly persistent. If anything, being too smart gets in the way –.

Death is really no more than the voluntary liquidation of an economy of microscopic free agents, the redemption of the debt of structured life.

All right.” Panin sips at his wine. “Excuse me, but – there is a personal connection?” “What?” “You appear unduly upset... ” “Yes.” She looks at her hands. “The missing officer is my husband.” Panin puts his glass down and leans back, very slowly, with the extreme self-control of a man who has just realized he is sharing a table with a large, ticking bomb. “Is there anything I can do to help?” “Yes.

We use committees for all the ulterior purposes for which they might have been designed: diffusion of executive responsibility, plausible deniability, misdirection, providing the appearance of activity without the substance, and protecting the guilty.