A Fire Upon the Deep Quotes

“I never guessed I could cry so hard my face hurt.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“Sometimes the biggest disasters aren't noticed at all - no one's around to write horror stories.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“[The Universe] does not care, and even with all our science there are some disasters that we can not avert. All evil and good is petty before nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that can not be twisted to villainy or good, but which simply is.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility and change.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“Once upon a time I was such a good liar; I could talk the fish right into my mouths.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“One of his greatest talents was empathy; no sadist can aspire to perfection without that diagnostic ability.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“He claimed that nearby gun thunder cleared the mind - but most everybody else agreed it made you daft.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers; deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation of all.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“All evil and good is petty before Nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that cannot be twisted to villainy or good, but which simply is.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“Half-assed programming was a time-filler that, like knitting, must date to the beginning of the human experience.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“The illusion of self-awareness. Happy automatons, running on trivial programs. I'll bet you never guess. From the inside, how can you?”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“Little fish risking everything for a piece of godhood...and not knowing heaven from hell, even when they find it.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“Here we begin frank speculation. And since we are speculating, we'll use those powerful pseudo-laws, the Principles of Mediocrity and Minimal Assumption.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“Hexapodia as the key insight”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“We're endangered by our own success.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“Ravna became a librarian. "The ultimate dilettante!" Lynne had teased.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“The hours came to minutes, the minutes to seconds. And now each second was as
long as all the time before”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“Five seconds, ten seconds, more change than ten thousand years of a human
civilization. A billion trillion constructions, mold curling out from every wall,
rebuilding what had been merely superhuman.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“A truce with monsters, mediated by a fool.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“How long must a fish study to understand human motivation?”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“At the Docks’ altitude, gravity was still about three-quarters of a gee. Air fountains hung a breathable atmosphere over the middle part of the platform. The day before, she had taken a sailboat across the clear-bottomed sea. That was a strange experience indeed: planetary clouds below your keel, stars and indigo sky above.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“Sometimes the biggest disasters aren’t noticed at all–no one’s around to write horror stories.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“When two people have a clear understanding of power and betrayal, then betrayal itself becomes almost impossible. There is only the ordered flow of events, bringing good to those who deserve to rule.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“Half-assed programming was a time-filler that, like knitting, must date to the beginning of the human experience. Of”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“Where the surf meets the shore – lots of neat things can happen there.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“It’s hard to be bored when you’re as stupid as a line.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“When two people have a clear understanding of power and betrayal, then betrayal itself becomes almost impossible.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“There was the time Blueshell had a humor fit at Pham’s faith in public key encryption, and Ravna knew some stories of her own to illustrate the Rider’s opinion.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“We’ll dedicate part of R00 to this mission. If their antenna swarm works properly, the Riders should have a thirty Kb/s link to Relay. You’ll be their prime contact here, and you’ll have access to our best strategists.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“He watched the results, using them to design new experiments. He was guided by what he saw rather than by what he wanted to believe.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep