Quotes from A Fire Upon the Deep

“I never guessed I could cry so hard my face hurt.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Sometimes the biggest disasters aren't noticed at all - no one's around to write horror stories.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“One of his greatest talents was empathy; no sadist can aspire to perfection without that diagnostic ability.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Once upon a time I was such a good liar; I could talk the fish right into my mouths.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“[The Universe] does not care, and even with all our science there are some disasters that we can not avert. All evil and good is petty before nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that can not be twisted to villainy or good, but which simply is.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility and change.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“He claimed that nearby gun thunder cleared the mind - but most everybody else agreed it made you daft.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers; deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation of all.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Little fish risking everything for a piece of godhood...and not knowing heaven from hell, even when they find it.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“The illusion of self-awareness. Happy automatons, running on trivial programs. I'll bet you never guess. From the inside, how can you?”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Here we begin frank speculation. And since we are speculating, we'll use those powerful pseudo-laws, the Principles of Mediocrity and Minimal Assumption.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“All evil and good is petty before Nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that cannot be twisted to villainy or good, but which simply is.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“We're endangered by our own success.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Ravna became a librarian. "The ultimate dilettante!" Lynne had teased.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Five seconds, ten seconds, more change than ten thousand years of a human
civilization. A billion trillion constructions, mold curling out from every wall,
rebuilding what had been merely superhuman.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Half-assed programming was a time-filler that, like knitting, must date to the beginning of the human experience.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Where the surf meets the shore – lots of neat things can happen there.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“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.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“The hours came to minutes, the minutes to seconds. And now each second was as
long as all the time before”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“How long must a fish study to understand human motivation?”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Half-assed programming was a time-filler that, like knitting, must date to the beginning of the human experience. Of”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Be cool, dear student. The heart of manipulation is to empathize without being touched.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Pham Nuwen plunked himself down, stretching indolently.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Все наперебой заверяли друг друга, что бояться нечего.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Our conclusion: this Helper Symbiosis is just another messianic religion, another screwball empire excusing its excesses and attempting to trick those it cannot directly coerce. Don’t be fooled! Crypto:”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“This was the pretech experience, that even if you had no enemies the world itself could kill you. And”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Over the last few weeks, some newsgroups have been full of tales of war and battle fleets, of billions dying in the clash of species. To all such — and those living more peaceably around them — we say look out on the universe. It does not care, and even with all our science there are some disasters that we can not avert. All evil and good is petty before Nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that cannot be twisted to villainy or good, but which simply is.”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

“Its agents -- not even
human equivalent on this primitive hardware -- raced through the ship's
automation”
― Vernor Vinge, quote from A Fire Upon the Deep

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Popular quotes

“Ricordo ancora dei momenti magnifici, in cui la famiglia era al completo...non immaginavo neppure lontanamente che da lì a breve quegli idilliaci intermezzi sarebbero finiti.
Eppure presto accadde.”
― Mineko Iwasaki, quote from Geisha, a Life

“Hana?" Lena says softly. "Are you okay?"
That single stupid question breaks me. All the metal fingers relax me at once, and the tears they've been holding back come surging up at once. Suddenly I am sobbing and telling her everything: about the raid, and the dogs, and the sounds of skulls cracking underneath regulator's nightsticks. Thinking about it again makes me feel like I might puke. At a certain point, Lena puts her arms around me and starts murmuring things into my hair. I don't even know what she's saying, and I don't care. JUst having her here—solid, real, on my side—makes me feel better than I have in weeks. Slowly I manage to stop crying, swallowing back the hiccups and sobs that are still running through me. I try to tell her that I've missed her, and that I've been stupid and wrong, but my voice is muffled and thick”
― Lauren Oliver, quote from Hana

“Oh, and Juliet," he said. I turned back. Half of his face was thrown in deep shadow, while the whites of his teeth gleamed in the distant lights from the salon. "I’ll be working in the laboratory late tonight. I’ve a good start on the new specimens. Don’t be alarmed if you’re awoken. The animals - they scream, you know. An unfortunate effect of vivisection. It keeps the whole household up."

For a breath, the world seemed to freeze. And then the clouds rolled again, the wind howled again. I realized that he had charmed me, just like he charmed everyone. I’d thought I was so clever. I thought I could see past his manipulations. But I’d heard only what I wanted to.

He’d never said the accusations were untrue. Just unfair.”
― Megan Shepherd, quote from The Madman’s Daughter

“This seemed to be how dads taught their boys to be men, but there had to be a point, maybe early on, when they were able to hold their hands. One tiny one engulfed by one big one.”
― Karin Slaughter, quote from Fractured

“Camille’s rain fell with such ferocity it was said to have filled the overhead nostrils of birds and drowned them from the trees.”
― Erik Larson, quote from Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

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