This is why I loved technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy.
Cory DoctorowStop in the middle of a sentence, leaving a rough edge for you to start from the nest day - that way, you can write three or five words without being โcreativeโ and before you know it, you're writing.
Cory DoctorowI can't go underground for a year, ten years, my whole life, waiting for freedom to be handed to me. Freedom is something you have to take for yourself.
Cory DoctorowThe right to freedom of association is fine, but why shouldn't the cops be allowed to mine your social network to figure out if you're hanging out with gangbangers and terrorists?
Cory DoctorowEngineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff.
Cory DoctorowIf surgeons don't get surgeon's block, then why are you allowed to get writer's block?
Cory DoctorowStories are propaganda, virii that slide past your critical immune system and insert themselves directly into your emotions.
Cory DoctorowThere is no future in which bits will be harder to copy than they are today ... Any business model that based on the idea that bits will be harder to copy is doomed.
Cory DoctorowContent isn't king. If I sent you to a desert island and gave you the choice of taking your friends or your movies, you'd choose your friends -- if you chose the movies, we'd call you a sociopath. Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about.
Cory DoctorowI just sit down and the page just comes out and I look at it and the elements that appear on that page have a lot to do with what's going on in my life.
Cory DoctorowFunny, for all surveillance, Osama bin Laden is still freeยand we're not. Guess who's winning the "war on terror?
Cory DoctorowIt's a story of little girls who are pressed into working in sweat shops in games, who spend all day doing repetitive grinding tasks like making shirts, which are then converted into gold and sold on eBay.
Cory DoctorowThe good news (for writers) is that this means that ebooks on computers are more likely to be an enticement to buy the printed book (which is, after all, cheap, easily had, and easy to use) than a substitute for it. You can probably read just enough of the book off the screen to realize you want to be reading it on paper.
Cory DoctorowCarlton Mellick III is one of bizarro fiction's most talented practitioners, a virtuoso of the surreal, science fictional tale.
Cory DoctorowMost of the books, music and movies ever released are not available for sale, anywhere in the world. In the brief time that P2P nets have flourished, the ad-hoc masses of the Internet have managed to put just about *everything* online. What's more, they've done it far cheaper than any other archiving/revival effort ever.
Cory DoctorowThe opposite of esprit d'escalier is the way that life's embarrassments come back to haunt us even after they're long past. I could remember every stupid thing I'd ever said or done, recall them with picture-perfect clarity. Any time I was feeling low, I'd naturally start to remember other times I felt that way, a hit parade of humiliations coming one after another to my mind.
Cory DoctorowThe accolade of your peers is very exciting, always. There's lots of good stuff on the ballot.
Cory DoctorowI fireballed him as he was seeking out treasure after we wiped out a band of orcs, playing rock-paper-scissors with each orc to determine who would prevail in combat. This is a lot more exciting than it sounds. It's quite civilized, and a little weird. You go running after someone through the woods, catch up with him, bare your teeth, and sit down to play a little roshambo.
Cory DoctorowWe're going to fight this battle with everything we have, and we will probably lose. But then we will fight it again, and we will lose a little less, for this battle will win us many supporters. And then we'll lose *again*. And *again*. And we will fight on. Because as hard as it is to win by fighting, it's impossible to win by doing nothing.
Cory DoctorowWhat if I got hit by lightning while walking with an umbrella? Ban umbrellas! Fight the menace of lightning!
Cory DoctorowFor decades, computers have been helping us to remember, but now it's time for them to help us to ignore.
Cory DoctorowIf you've never programmed a computer, you should. There's nothing like it in the whole world. When you program a computer, it does exactly what you tell it to do. It's like designing a machine โ any machine, like a car, like a faucet, like a gas-hinge for a door โ using math and instructions. It's awesome in the truest sense: it can fill you with awe.
Cory Doctorow