I don’t think that teenagers are the way they are because of their age. It’s because they have nothing to lose. They simultaneously have a lot of time on their hands and yet are very impatient to get on with their lives.

— Neal Stephenson

. . . If money is a science, then it is a dark science, darker than alchemy. It split away from Natural Philosophy millennia ago, and has gone on developing ever since, by its own rules.

— Neal Stephenson

If money is a science, then it is a dark science...it has gone on developing...by its own rules

— Neal Stephenson

If you can't test it, it's not theories -- it's metathesis. A branch of philosophy. So, if you want to think of it this way, our test equipment is what defines the boundary separating theories from philosophy.

— Neal Stephenson

If you've put yourself in a position where someone has to see you in order for you to be safe - to see you, and to give a fuck - you've already blown it.

— Neal Stephenson

I had to ride my bike to and from their god-damn plant way up north in the high-chemical crime district, and reachable only by riding on the shoulder of some major freeways. I could feel the years ticking off my life expectancy as the mile markers struggled by.

— Neal Stephenson

I just saved your fucking life, Mom... It's like, if you--people of a certain age--would make some effort to just stay in touch with sort of basic, modern-day events, then your kids wouldn't have to take these drastic measures.

— Neal Stephenson

I just saved your fucking life, Mom. . . . You could at least offer me an Oreo.

— Neal Stephenson

In the timeless and universal manner of authors conversing in public places, he did not fail to mention its title, “Volume III of Principia Mathematica entitled, The System of the World, available shortly, where books are sold.

— Neal Stephenson

In your Primer you have a resource that will make you highly educated, but it will never make you intelligent. That comes from life. Your life up to this point has given you all the experience you need to be intelligent, but you have to think about those experiences. If you don't think about them, you'll be psychologically unwell. If you do think about them, you will become not merely educated but intelligent.

— Neal Stephenson