Quotes by Charles Stross

“Unfortunately it's also true to say that good management is a bit like oxygen - it's invisible and you don't notice its presence until it's gone, and then you're sorry.”

“I was raised thinking that moral and ethical standards are universals that apply equally to everyone. And these values aren't easily compatible with the kind of religion that posits a Creator. To m...”

“I am me and I have been Juliette and both of us have dreamed this dream repeatedly. And what makes this dream so unfortunate is that it is a true thing that happened to someone else ... who is both...”

“Like the famous mad philosopher said, when you stare into the void, the void stares also; but if you cast into the void, you get a type conversion error. (Which just goes to show Nietzsche wasn't a...”

“Idiots emit bogons, causing machinery to malfunction in their presence. System administrators absorb bogons, letting machinery work again.”

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sane employee in possession of his wits must be in want of a good manager.”

“The encapsulated bird your conspirators sent you to fetch. The sterilized male chicken with the Creator DNA sequences. The plot capon. Where is it?”

“Bob loses saving throw vs. shiny with a penalty of -5. Bob takes 2d8 damage to the credit card.”

“Old Enochian running on neural wetware is not the fastest procedural language ever invented, and its semantics make AppleScript look like a thing of elegance and beauty”

“Although I am unconvinced that I desire life, I am not yet ready to embrace death.”

“Any civilization where the main symbol of religious veneration is a tool of execution is a bad place to have children.”

“Contract law is essentially a defensive scorched-earth battleground where the constant question is, if my business partner was possessed by a brain-eating monster from beyond spacetime tomorrow, wh...”

“This has serveral consequences, starting with screwing over most cryptography algorithms--translation: all your bank account are belong to us--”

“I am the Eschaton. I am not your God.I am descended from you, and exist in your future.Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else.”

“The rules of physics are, in some cases, suspiciously anthropic.”

“Humans: such a brilliant model of emotional self-awareness.”

“The five stages of bureaucratic grieving are: denial, anger, committee meetings, scapegoating, and cover-up.”

“There is a philosophy by which many people live their lives, and it is this: life is a shit sandwich, but the more bread you've got, the less shit you have to eat.These people are often selfish bra...”

“All men are islands, surrounded by the bottomless oceans of unthinking night.”

“Private ownerships of a ...slave chip is illegal in many polities. It tends to be a government monopoly, much like other forms of violence. But I had fallen among pirates and life insurance underwr...”