Neal Stephenson Quotes

We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water.

We're just a bubble in a boiling pot.

Even Castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually.

The only certainty is that nothing is certain.

We can change everything but we can't stop time.

song of elli (old age) "What is plucked will grow again, What is slain lives on, What is stolen will remain What is gone is gone... What is sea-born dies on land, Soft is trod upon. What is given burns the hand - What is gone is gone... Here is there, and high is low; All may be undone. What is true, no two men know - What is gone is gone... Who has choices need not choose. We must, who have none. We can love but what we lose - What is gone is gone.

The essence of what makes life beautiful is the fact that it can go away.

Everything comes to nothing in the end, I suppose. Or at least, nothing happens exactly the way we imagine it.

Run down the list of those who felt intense anger at something: the most famous, the most unfortunate, the most hated, the most whatever: Where is all that now? Smoke, dust, legend...or not even a legend. Think of all the examples. And how trivial the things we want so passionately are.

Nothing is permanent. The only thing any of us have in common is the inevitable.

There's certainly nothing lasting and definite about the theater.

If you learn one thing from having lived through decades of changing views, it is that all predictions are necessarily false.

As much as we'd like to think life is sacred, there's not a lot of evidence for that. The universe is maddeningly casual, giving and taking it.

All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last.

Avoid the world, it's just a lot of dust and drag and means nothing in the end.

Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence.

Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature.

Be vigilant, for nothing one achieves lasts forever.

The foundations of our lives are far more fragile than we think. So we are severely shaken when life turns out to have a will of its own.

'Never' is too much of a word. Nothing lasts forever.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that's how we've got to live.

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless.

The present will not long endure.