Idiots emit bogons, causing machinery to malfunction in their presence. System administrators absorb...
CHARLES STROSS Bob loses saving throw vs. shiny with a penalty of -5. Bob takes 2d8 damage to the credit card.
CHARLES STROSS Science fiction was rocket-mad for about 40 years until aerospace hit a brick wall about 1970. I wou...
CHARLES STROSS Many science fiction writers are literary autodidacts who focus on the genre primarily as a literatu...
CHARLES STROSS I tend to work on the principle that much humour relies on cognitive dissonance - on the foreground ...
CHARLES STROSS It turns out that the killer application for virtual reality is other human beings. Build a world th...
CHARLES STROSS I think that if there's one key insight science can bring to fiction, it's that fiction - th...
CHARLES STROSS I don't do villains often enough. There are two approaches: give them sympathetic, reasonable mo...
CHARLES STROSS Manfred used to be a flock of pigeons -- literally, his exocortex dispersed among a passel of bird b...
CHARLES STROSS The paucity of near-future U.S. scifi is about the country becoming pessimistic, not being able to s...
CHARLES STROSS Pubs are, disturbingly, where I hatch most of my best idea-sculptures: possibly it's something t...
CHARLES STROSS History is another country and might be full of fascinating incidents and places to go visit - but a...
CHARLES STROSS You'll still get guys with an array of badges to demonstrate their importance, but that just exclude...
CHARLES STROSS We're a bit more upbeat and there's an openness about there being a future for us,
CHARLES STROSS It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sane employee in possession of his wits must be in wan...
CHARLES STROSS It popped up on my Outlook calendar, flagged in red like an inflamed pimple full of infected bureauc...
CHARLES STROSS The social context of the UK is more open to the future, the old pessimism has been scrubbed and the...
CHARLES STROSS I was raised thinking that moral and ethical standards are universals that apply equally to everyone...
CHARLES STROSS I was walking around for a week or so trying to remember not to talk about it. And, you know, keepin...
CHARLES STROSS ... the ads made me feel bilious and love-stricken, invaded and debauched by a coldly mechanical lus...
CHARLES STROSS Like the famous mad philosopher said, when you stare into the void, the void stares also; but if you...
CHARLES STROSS MONDAY DAWNS BRIGHT AND HOT AND EARLY, AND I FIND MY SELF waking to the happy knowledge that I can g...
CHARLES STROSS All right.” Panin sips at his wine. “Excuse me, but—there is a personal connection?” “What...
CHARLES STROSS I’m a believer. And like I said, I wish I was still an atheist. Believing I was born into a harsh,...
CHARLES STROSS Russian espionage directed against the West has been rising since 2001. We kind of forgot that you d...
CHARLES STROSS For instance, I never wrote to my MP to express my displeasure at the widespread deployment of sleep...
CHARLES STROSS I’ve met gibbering horrors from other universes, been psychically entangled with a serial killer f...
CHARLES STROSS Summer in England   THOSE WORDS ARE SUPPOSED TO CONJURE UP HALCYON SUNNY afternoons; the smell of n...
CHARLES STROSS To put it bluntly, there are too many humans on this planet. Six-billion-plus primates. And we think...
CHARLES STROSS Like I said: the only god I believe in is coming back. And when he arrives, I’ll be waiting with a...
CHARLES STROSS I shove my reading matter back into my messenger bag (it’s a novel about a private magician for hi...
CHARLES STROSS There is a philosophy by which many people live their lives, and it is this: life is a shit sandwich...
CHARLES STROSS Fatal accidents never happen because of just one mistake. It takes a whole chain of stupids lining u...
CHARLES STROSS I wish I was still an atheist. Believing I was born into a harsh, uncaring cosmos – in which my ex...
CHARLES STROSS Unfortunately it's also true to say that good management is a bit like oxygen - it's invisible and y...
CHARLES STROSS The food’s very good,” I offer defensively. “It’s not that”—she gazes past my shoulder�...
CHARLES STROSS Very good, Mr. Howard. They were the ones who didn’t try to second-guess their commanding officer....
CHARLES STROSS I know just how devoted to this organisation you are. Draftees back in my day used to understand wha...
CHARLES STROSS reach into my travel bag and pull out my hacked Palm computer,
CHARLES STROSS Horror fiction allows us to confront and sublimate our fears of an uncontrollable universe, but the ...
CHARLES STROSS This document describes progress to date in establishing a defensive network capable of repelling wi...
CHARLES STROSS We remain convinced that this is the best defensive posture to adopt in order to minimize casualties...
CHARLES STROSS It was one of ours originally, but no human being can sprint around a building with their helmet off...
CHARLES STROSS There are good ways and bad ways to get my attention. Whacking on my ego with a crowbar will get my ...
CHARLES STROSS (I’m a child of the wired generation, unlike some of the suits hereabouts who have their secretari...
CHARLES STROSS the stacks keeps you on your toes. Besides which, there are rumours of ape-men living down here; I d...
CHARLES STROSS Gene police! You! Out of the pool, now!” “It’s
CHARLES STROSS They’ll like it even less if I hear any words from them,” I said. You have to be firm with colon...
CHARLES STROSS friend of mine who was turned down
CHARLES STROSS Just solving certain theorems makes waves in the Platonic over-space. Pump lots of power through a g...
CHARLES STROSS you young ones . . .” ‘Ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country has ev...
CHARLES STROSS This has serveral consequences, starting with screwing over most cryptography algorithms--translatio...
CHARLES STROSS But, as Andy pointed out, if being a smart-arse was an offence, the Laundry would not exist in the f...
CHARLES STROSS I try not to notice the exploded eyeballs or the ruptured tongue bursting through the blackened lips...
CHARLES STROSS programming is a job where Lovecraft meets tradecraft, all the time.
CHARLES STROSS For programming is a job where Lovecraft meets tradecraft, all the time.
CHARLES STROSS Because, you see, everything you know about the way this universe works is correct—except for the ...
CHARLES STROSS They never tell you how heavy a corpse is in training school.
CHARLES STROSS My computer terminal whistles at me: YOU HAVE MAIL. No shit, Sherlock, I always have mail. It's an e...
CHARLES STROSS The male ego is a curious thing. It’s about the size of a small continent but it’s extremely bri...
CHARLES STROSS I spent six hours becoming one with a shrubbery last night. There were three cloudbursts and a rain ...
CHARLES STROSS That was what we call in the trade an Unscheduled Reality Excursion, usually abbreviated to ‘Oh fu...
CHARLES STROSS Gene police! You! Out of the pool, now!
CHARLES STROSS Helpfiles are traditionally outnumbered by no-help files, which superficially resemble a helpfile in...
CHARLES STROSS The chip that functions abnormally will be desoldered, as they say.
CHARLES STROSS Some say the Internet is for porn but you know that in truth the Internet is for spam.
CHARLES STROSS Science fiction has traditionally been economically naive, with a strong libertarian streak, which I...
CHARLES STROSS I write more for the children of the computer revolution, who are also interested in speculation and...
CHARLES STROSS If you're going to write for a living, you should find something fun to write.
CHARLES STROSS Luckily, I'm not a stand-up comedian, so I don't get the fear of standing on stage in front ...
CHARLES STROSS Britain is relatively compact and much closer to the borders of the U.S.S.R. than anywhere in North ...
CHARLES STROSS The business of fiction is the study of the human condition, and gender is something that many human...
CHARLES STROSS I suspect political fiction is at its best precisely when it doesn't preach, but restricts itsel...
CHARLES STROSS My books are published by Hachette. My books have been blacklisted and blocked on Amazon on multiple...
CHARLES STROSS Novels are one of the few remaining areas of narrative storytelling where one person does almost all...
CHARLES STROSS The real challenge in this line of work is being able to weed the productive ones from the chaff, to...
CHARLES STROSS I am a lazy, cynical, middle-aged guy who has long since come to the conclusion that most historical...
CHARLES STROSS Generating ideas isn't some mystical talent that you have to be born with: it's a skill you ...
CHARLES STROSS Fiction is the study of the human condition under imagined circumstances.
CHARLES STROSS One of my earliest recollections is being woken up at some ungodly hour in the morning by my parents...
CHARLES STROSS I stared at him. “You’re a bat, Rudi! She’s a mermaid. What were you thinking?
CHARLES STROSS If operating systems are weapons, Solaris is a world-war-two German railway gun with a cracked bree...
CHARLIE STROSS Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
CHARLES You should encourage a child to show off. You can say to a child, 'Stop being rude,' 'St...
CHARLES DANCE No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.
CHARLES DICKENS How sweet it is to learn the Savior's love when nobody else loves us! When friends flee, what a ...
CHARLES SPURGEON Cast away your sloth, your lethargy, your coldness, or whatever interferes with your chaste and pure...
CHARLES SPURGEON 'You are no saint,' says the devil. Well, if I am not, I am a sinner, and Jesus Christ came ...
CHARLES SPURGEON None are more unjust in their judgments of others than those who have a high opinion of themselves.
CHARLES SPURGEON Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are...
CHARLES SPURGEON A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you...
CHARLES SPURGEON Free will carried many a soul to hell, but never a soul to heaven.
CHARLES SPURGEON Many people cycle or swim to keep trim. But if swimming is so good for the figure, how do you explai...
CHARLES SAATCHI Cows are my passion. What I have ever sighed for has been to retreat to a Swiss farm, and live entir...
CHARLES DICKENS In architecture the idea degenerated. Design allows a more direct and pleasurable route.
CHARLES EAMES We work because it's a chain reaction, each subject leads to the next.
CHARLES EAMES It is not easy to do something good, but it is extremely difficult to do something bad.
CHARLES EAMES Ideas are cheap. Always be passionate about ideas and communicating those ideas and discoveries to o...
CHARLES EAMES To whom does design address itself: to the greatest number, to the specialist of an enlightened matt...
CHARLES EAMES It is almost impossible to reconcile self expression with the creative act.
CHARLES EAMES It makes me feel guilty that anybody should have such a good time doing what they are supposed to do...
CHARLES EAMES The real questions are: Does it solve a problem? Is it serviceable? How is it going to look in ten y...
CHARLES EAMES Who ever said that pleasure wasn't functional?
CHARLES EAMES Art resides in the quality of doing, process is not magic.
CHARLES EAMES Choose your corner, pick away at it carefully, intensely and to the best of your ability and that wa...
CHARLES EAMES Having a bunch of cats around is good. If you're feeling bad, you just look at the cats, you'...
CHARLES BUKOWSKI It is only the great hearted who can be true friends. The mean and cowardly, Can never know what tru...
CHARLES KINGSLEY Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships.
CHARLES SIMIC Sincerity makes the very least person to be of more value than the most talented hypocrite.
CHARLES SPURGEON Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that&...
CHARLES MINGUS The possessors of wealth can scarcely be indifferent to processes which, nearly or remotely have bee...
CHARLES BABBAGE Some kinds of nails, such as those used for defending the soles of coarse shoes, called hobnails, re...
CHARLES BABBAGE The accumulation of skill and science which has been directed to diminish the difficulty of producin...
CHARLES BABBAGE Telegraphs are machines for conveying information over extensive lines with great rapidity.
CHARLES BABBAGE The public character of every public servant is legitimate subject of discussion, and his fitness or...
CHARLES BABBAGE Surely, if knowledge is valuable, it can never be good policy in a country far wealthier than Tuscan...
CHARLES BABBAGE In England, the profession of the law is that which seems to hold out the strongest attraction to ta...
CHARLES BABBAGE Another mode of accumulating power arises from lifting a weight and then allowing it to fall.
CHARLES BABBAGE That the state of knowledge in any country will exert a directive influence on the general system of...
CHARLES BABBAGE The difference between a tool and a machine is not capable of very precise distinction; nor is it ne...
CHARLES BABBAGE The fatigue produced on the muscles of the human frame does not altogether depend on the actual forc...
CHARLES BABBAGE There are few circumstances which so strongly distinguish the philosopher, as the calmness with whic...
CHARLES BABBAGE In mathematics we have long since drawn the rein, and given over a hopeless race.
CHARLES BABBAGE The half minute which we daily devote to the winding-up of our watches is an exertion of labour almo...
CHARLES BABBAGE The economy of human time is the next advantage of machinery in manufactures.
CHARLES BABBAGE Whenever the work is itself light, it becomes necessary, in order to economize time, to increase the...
CHARLES BABBAGE At each increase of knowledge, as well as on the contrivance of every new tool, human labour becomes...
CHARLES BABBAGE A tool is usually more simple than a machine; it is generally used with the hand, whilst a machine i...
CHARLES BABBAGE If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.
CHARLES DICKENS Nothing reflects so much honor on a workman as a trial of his work and its endurance of it. So it is...
CHARLES SPURGEON There is a mystique about psychiatry that people think that you have some kind of a magical lens, yo...
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER I realized that If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.
CHARLES LINDBERGH I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.
CHARLES V One of the important things about temptation is, if I'm going to deal with it I'm going to h...
CHARLES STANLEY A Christian has no right being in a fight unless it's a spiritual fight.
CHARLES STANLEY A man can preach no better than he prays.
CHARLES STANLEY An unschooled man who knows how to meditate upon the Lord has learned far more than the man with the...
CHARLES STANLEY The Bible is clear that those who fail to heed the Lord's discipline - whether nations, cities, ...
CHARLES STANLEY Helping someone come to a saving knowledge of Christ is the greatest achievement possible.
CHARLES STANLEY In our friendships we have to be wise that we choose godly people to be our friends. Somebody might ...
CHARLES STANLEY Basically, there are two paths you can walk: faith or fear. It's impossible to simultaneously tr...
CHARLES STANLEY The bottom line in the Christian life is obedience and most people don't even like the word.
CHARLES STANLEY One of Satan's most deceptive and powerful ways of defeating us is to get us to believe a lie. A...
CHARLES STANLEY Earthly wisdom is doing what comes naturally. Godly wisdom is doing what the Holy Spirit compels us ...
CHARLES STANLEY Every test, every trial, every heartache that's been significant, I can turn it over and see how...
CHARLES STANLEY What if others suffer shipwreck, yet none that sail with Jesus have ever been stranded yet.
CHARLES SPURGEON You have to believe in a placebo or it won't work, but if it works, it's obviously working i...
CHARLES JENCKS Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.
RAY CHARLES Friendship is held to be the severest test of character. It is easy, we think, to be loyal to a fami...
CHARLES EASTMAN The Bible tells us that God will meet all our needs. He feeds the birds of the air and clothes the g...
CHARLES STANLEY The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take...
CHARLES BUKOWSKI In the same way the sun never grows weary of shining, nor a stream of flowing, it is God's natur...
CHARLES SPURGEON It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in...
CHARLES DICKENS There's nothing like a jolly good disaster to get people to start doing something.
PRINCE CHARLES We can be tired, weary and emotionally distraught, but after spending time alone with God, we find t...
CHARLES STANLEY I take big risks, but I'm not reckless about it.
LARRY CHARLES Between calculated risk and reckless decision-making lies the dividing line between profit and loss.
CHARLES DUHIGG The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can...
CHARLES DICKENS I don't actually subscribe to the view that all power corrupts. But absolute power - when secure...
CHARLES KENNEDY There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk.
CHARLES DICKENS Credit is a system whereby a person who can not pay gets another person who can not pay to guarantee...
CHARLES DICKENS There are women who can make you feel more with their bodies and their souls, but these are the exac...
CHARLES BUKOWSKI The rule in carving holds good as to criticism; never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon...
CHARLES BUXTON Iron hand in a velvet glove.
CHARLES V It takes a real man to make a true confession - a Chocolate Soldier will excuse or cloak his sin.
CHARLES STUDD There exist only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. To know, to kill...
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE You can repeat things because it's on a set and there are actors. But if it's a great moment...
LARRY CHARLES I don't want to just add another DVD to the pile. So I think, 'Is this going to have an impa...
LARRY CHARLES I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. I grew up in a very Jewish neighbourhood and thought the whole worl...
LARRY CHARLES There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.
CHARLES DICKENS When I hear of an 'equity' in a case like this, I am reminded of a blind man in a dark room ...
CHARLES BOWEN We were the only black family in an estate with 1,000 white families. Liverpool being quite racist i...
CRAIG CHARLES I think anybody who is racist is an idiot whether they are black or white.
CHARLES BARKLEY There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.
CHARLES DICKENS 'Federalism', in the context of political and media usage in Britain, has come to mean the c...
CHARLES KENNEDY I've always resented the force of attraction that traps me here on Planet Earth. It makes me fee...
CHARLES PLATT You ask what my conclusions are, rereading my journals and looking back on World War II from the van...
CHARLES LINDBERGH I would not be on the level did I not confess that I always have believed that the old Browns were a...
CHARLES COMISKEY Success soon palls. The joyous time is when the breeze first strikes your sails, and the waters rust...
CHARLES BUXTON The quicker we get rid of the lobby system the better for all of us. I don't think in this day a...
CHARLES KENNEDY So fleet the works of men, back to their earth again;Ancient and holy things fade like a dream.
CHARLES KINGSLEY I could never hate anyone I knew.
CHARLES LAMB Audiences seem to have a limitless appetite for vampires and for fantasy in general. Unlike many oth...
CHARLES DANCE By and large, talent is in such short supply that mediocrity can be taken for brilliance rather more...
CHARLES SAATCHI Go, forget me - why should sorrow, O'er that brow a shadow fling? Go, forget me - and tomorrow, ...
CHARLES WOLFE I've always been slightly self-conscious as an actor, and I guess that sometimes reads as pompos...
CHARLES KIMBROUGH A privilege may not be a right, but, under the constitution of the country, I do not gather that any...
CHARLES TUPPER My wife and I met right down the street. Our single, 'Just a Kiss' is kind of about that mom...
CHARLES KELLEY I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby and beaten, so united; to see w...
CHARLES DICKENS We said that a single injustice, a single crime, a single illegality, particularly if it is official...
CHARLES PEGUY We should weep for men at their birth, not at their death.
CHARLES MONTESQUIEU There is no such thing as death. In nature nothing dies. From each sad remnant of decay, some forms ...
CHARLES MACKAY Those who think in Britain they can push the Brexit button and not have a bill to pay are seriously ...
CHARLES MICHEL In Britain ever more, they will realize that Brexit, well, has consequences - economic, commercial, ...
CHARLES MICHEL God buries His workmen but carries on His work.
CHARLES WESLEY Make em laugh; make em cry; make em wait.
CHARLES READE The power of administrative bodies to make finding of fact which may be treated as conclusive, if th...
CHARLES HUGHES We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the judiciary is...
CHARLES HUGHES Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of w...
CHARLES DICKENS There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.
CHARLES DICKENS