Ian McDonald

"Any aeai smart enough to pass a Turing test is smart enough to know to fail it."

"How proud he would have felt to have seen those seeds germinate into a Muslim nation, a Land of the Pure. How it would have broken his heart to see that Land of the Pure become a medieval theocracy an…"

"The laws of economics are subject to the laws of physics. The physical processes that govern this planet and the continued life upon it place as stringent an upper limit on economic growth as the spee…"

"The five minutes ticked away on Limaal Mandella’s fob watch and the tension wound tight around Corporation Plaza. Rael Mandella Jr., sweating in his father’s best championship suit, was horrified to r…"

"It was not socialism or communism or Islamism. It was romanticism. There is no more incandescent passion than love in a time of revolution."

"Half your DNA's owned by some biotech corporation. Every time you have sex, you break copyright."

"Ghosts? Pah. We are the most substantial things in the world, the foundations of the present. We are memories."

"She had not won a clean victory. Tinkering with time and history offended her political sensibilities. History was written in the stones. It was not a numinous thing to be tossed sparkling in the air …"