I think visual literacy and media literacy is not without value, but I think plain old-fashioned text literacy and mathematical literacy are much more powerful and flexible ways to organize your mind.
Neal StephensonThe less attractive the character, the more I enjoyed writing them. Officious bureaucrats and PowerPoint weasels are where it's at for me.
Neal StephensonThe sight of the bare katana inspires everyone to a practically Nipponese level of politeness
Neal StephensonEven the best of us have certain psychological mechanisms that can suddenly kick in and turn us into monsters. That to me is the basic message of events like the rise of Nazism, the Salem witch trials, and so on: not that bad people do bad things, but that good people do bad things. It's distressingly easy for those mechanisms to be triggered, either consciously by demagogues, or naively by people who think they're trying to do the right thing. Which is why I think it's more akin to tic-tac-toe.
Neal StephensonI try to find a style that matches the book. In the Baroque Cycle, I got infected with the prose style of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, which is my favorite era. It's recent enough that it is easy to read - easier than Elizabethan English - but it's pre-Victorian and so doesn't have the pomposity that is often a problem with 19th-century English prose. It is earthy and direct and frequently hilarious.
Neal StephensonWhen I read a novel that I really like, I feel as if I am in direct, personal communication with the author. I feel as if the author and I are on the same wavelength mentally, that we have a lot in common with each other, and that we could have an interesting conversation, or even a friendship, if the circumstances permitted it. When the novel comes to an end, I feel a certain letdown, a loss of contact. It is natural to want to recapture that feeling by reading other works by the same author, or by corresponding with him/her directly.
Neal Stephenson