FastSaying

The food’s very good,” I offer defensively. “It’s not that”—she gazes past my shoulder—“it’s the culture. It’s very Californian. I wasn’t expecting the rot to have reached London yet.” “We are Bay Aryans from Berkeley: prepare to be reengineered in an attractive range of colour schemes for your safety and comfort!” “Something like that.” A waitron

Charles Stross

Charles Stross

Related Quotes

Many science fiction writers are literary autodidacts who focus on the genre primarily as a literature of ideas rather than as a pure art form or a tool for the introspective examination of the human condition. I'm not entirely at ease with that self-description.
— Charles Stross
ArtArt FormCondition
I tend to work on the principle that much humour relies on cognitive dissonance - on the foreground not matching the background, on the protagonist's response to a situation being inappropriate, and so on.
— Charles Stross
BackgroundBeingCognitive
I was raised thinking that moral and ethical standards are universals that apply equally to everyone. And these values aren't easily compatible with the kind of religion that posits a Creator. To my way of thinking, an omnipotent being who sets up a universe in which thinking beings proliferate, grow old, and die (usually in agony, alone, and in fear) is a cosmic sadist.
— Charles Stross
atheismcosmic-sadistdeath
I was walking around for a week or so trying to remember not to talk about it. And, you know, keeping good news to yourself isn't always easy.
— Charles Stross
Trying
I think that if there's one key insight science can bring to fiction, it's that fiction - the study of the human condition - needs to broaden its definition of the human condition. Because the human condition isn't immutable and doomed to remain uniform forever.
— Charles Stross
BecauseBringBroaden