100 Quotes by Vernor Vinge

Ravna thought a moment. “Sysadmin is the usual term,” she said.

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

Poor humans; they will all die.“”Poor us; we will not.

When two people have a clear understanding of power and betrayal, then betrayal itself becomes almost impossible. There is only the ordered flow of events, bringing good to those who deserve to rule.

A truce with monsters, mediated by a fool.

The illusion of self-awareness. Happy automatons, running on trivial programs. I’ll bet you never guess. From the inside, how can you?

Nau had been very careful that enough nukes remained. If necessary, he could play the old, old game of total disaster management. So what can be salvaged? He.

At the Docks’ altitude, gravity was still about three-quarters of a gee. Air fountains hung a breathable atmosphere over the middle part of the platform. The day before, she had taken a sailboat across the clear-bottomed sea. That was a strange experience indeed: planetary clouds below your keel, stars and indigo sky above.

Politics is good; when it works properly, disagreements get solved without people beating each other up. But when a regime knows its days are numbered, there’s always the chance it may use its position to change the rules and make the debate it is losing irrelevant.