53 Quotes by Ken MacLeod

The secret of becoming a writer is to write, write and keep on writing.

I don’t really believe in the Devil, but if the Devil is the Father of Lies, then he certainly invented the Internet.

I’m a long-term optimist, and I don’t think the problems with our society are from being overly optimistic.

I enjoyed Old Man’s War immensely. A space war story with fast action, vivid characters, moral complexity and cool speculative physics, set in a future you almost want to live into, and a universe you sincerely hope you don’t live in already.

The real world is far too complex and unpredictable to make something like the idea of humanity controlling its own evolution or engineering itself – well, I wouldn’t say impossible but it should be approached with a degree of caution.

The world has become one big grassy knoll, crawling with lone gunmen who think they’re the Warren Commission.

Whatever the truth about the Deliverer, she will remain in my mind as she was shown on that statue, and all the other statues and murals, songs and stories: riding, at the head of her own swift cavalry, with a growing migration behind her and a decadent, vulnerable, defenceless and rich continent ahead; and, floating bravely above her head and above her army, the black flag on which nothing is written.

For we have seen the future – we have by now centuries of experience of the future – and we know it doesn’t work.