It's an engrossing look at the way the flow of information shapes history-as well as a rare glimpse into the soul of the hardcore geek

I used to write in a local coffee shop, but there was another guy, another writer, who kept sitting in my favorite seat. I would show up, and he would be there, and I would get exiled to a couch or something, and it would throw me off my game.

I studied the cello for a long time, from when I was little up through college.

The real world is horrible.

Magic: it was what happened when the mind met the world, and the mind won for a change.

As a teenager in Brooklyn Quentin had often imagined himself engaged in martial heroics, but after this he knew, as a cold immutable fact, that he would do anything necessary, sacrificing whatever or whomever he had to, to avoid risking exposure to physical violence. Shame never came into it. He embraced his new identity as a coward. He would run in the other direction. He would lie down and cry and put his arms over his head or play dead. It didn't matter what he had to do, he would do it and be glad.

It's a terrible thing for a book, when you feel like you're supposed to like it.