The Great Geek Manual

…the difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people-and this is true whether or not they are well-educated-is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations-in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.

- The Diamond Age or A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson“>Neal Stephenson, 1995.
Character: Constable Moore

Adventures are all very well in their place, but there’s a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain.

- Stardust by Neil Gaiman, 1999.

A standalone object, no matter how well designed, has limited potential for new weirdness. A connected object, one that is a node in a network that interacts in some way with other nodes, can give birth to a hundred unique relationships that it never could do while unconnected. Out of this tangle of possible links come myriad new niches for innovations and interactions.

- “Plentitude, Not Scarcity” by Kevin Kelly
New Rules for the New Economy, August 13, 2009.

Style used to be an interaction between the human soul and tools that were limiting. In the digital era, it will have to come from the soul alone.

- Jaron Lanier

Whatever the next evolutionary domain, it is surely far beyond the imagination of any science fiction writer, futurologist, chaos theorist, literary critic, or shaman. We have plenty of good work yet ahead, and a measure of pleasure as well.

- “Culture as an Evolutionary Arena” by William Benzon,
Originally published in the Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems, 1996.

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.

- Dr. Theodore Geisel, “Dr. Seuss”

I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.

- Franklin P. Adams

Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.

- “Reflections on the Atom Bomb” by Gertrude Stein, first published in the Yale Poetry Review, December 1947.