Neil Stephenson

“The light shone on a face imprinted with more odd and unwholesome tales than a warehouse full of Bibles.”

“A hive mind is a social organization of RISTs that are capable of processing semantic memes ("thinking"). These could be either carbon-based or silicon-based. RISTs who enter a hive mind surrender their independent identities (which are mere illusions anyway). For purposes of convenience, the constituents of the hive mind are assigned bit-pattern designators.”

“She doesn't want you to understand her. She knows that's impossible. She just wants you to understand yourself. Everything else is negotiable.”