![So I'm well aware that there are certain people frustrated with the endings of my books. I can remember at the time I was writing it, I told a friend of mine that the climax of Snow Crash was now longer than Moby-Dick: There's a helicopter that gets brought down; there's a private jet that blows up; some people die; there's confrontation and a girl goes home with her mom - so it seems like a good ending to me. [audience laughter]
Once you write a book or two with controversial endings - and that meme gets going, of "Stephenson can't write endings” - then that gets slapped on everything that you do no matter how elaborate the ending is. I think Anathem does OK on that score. I'm sure that I'll be hearing from some of the "Stephenson can't write endings” people, but I think that it has a decent enough ending. (Neal Stephenson)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/59/neal-stephenson-audience-book-1015359.webp)
So I'm well aware that there are certain people frustrated with the endings of my books. I can remember at the time I was writing it, I told a friend of mine that the climax of Snow Crash was now longer than Moby-Dick: There's a helicopter that gets brought down; there's a private jet that blows up; some people die; there's confrontation and a girl goes home with her mom - so it seems like a good ending to me. [audience laughter] Once you write a book or two with controversial endings - and that meme gets going, of "Stephenson can't write endings” - then that gets slapped on everything that you do no matter how elaborate the ending is. I think Anathem does OK on that score. I'm sure that I'll be hearing from some of the "Stephenson can't write endings” people, but I think that it has a decent enough ending.
Neal StephensonRelated topics
audience book certain climax confrontation crash die ending enough everything friend girl good hearing home jet laughter longer matter mine now once people private score slap snow sure tell think time well writing write meme mom helicopterRelated quotes
[P]eople misunderstand Israel, and see it now in colonial, imperialist terms is because it's a unique event in human history. The British colonization of North America, New Zealand, Australia, the Dutch in South Africa, they came to places that they had never been to. That's colonialism. You put your people in there. You takeover. You marginalize the natives if you can. You may not succeed. In South Africa, that's colonialism. So they see the Jews arriving in what's called Palestine, and that's the parallel, the only one they understand. They can't put their heads around the fact that this is a people returning to their home. That they never gave up title to. They never gave up their longing for. It was repeated in their rituals three times a day, it wasn't like once a year, let's remember the homeland.
Charles Krauthammer
The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society... Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business's workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge's defined body of potential employees... Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife... Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Ron Paul
Every political debate these days contains a lot about economic policies. So much so that sometimes I think people get a little tired of hearing about them. Naturally there is a cry that Government must put people before economics. Who could disagree? That is the very reason why we in our Party have constantly fought Marxism and Communism. Fought Marxism because of -its compulsory society -its nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange. -its attempt to snuff out individual conscience. -the absence of the great voluntary societies which are so much a part of our way of life. -its denial of freedom to choose -its elevation of the values of the State above those of religion. Its denial of the right to educate children outside the state system. -its extinction of private property because property rights support human rights.
Margaret Thatcher
There was only the choice between Communism and Hitler, and I will tell you why Hitler won. People will not give up religion, rights, freedom of personality, the opportunity to develop by individual effort - which includes private property. And the other reason for Hitler's winning is that if a whole people is treated as the Germans were, everyone will say, 'Are we worse people than others? Are we of a minor race?' Just as every single individual needs and must have self-respect, just as every family is proud of decent traditions, so every nation wants to maintain her individual manner, culture, language, and customs. It was in these respects that Communism failed. The Communists said that God was nonsense and stupidity and preached internationalism without maintaining the natural national feelings of a nation.
Hjalmar Schacht
Persisting in their original resolve to destroy me and everything mine by any means they can think of, these men are aware of my views in astronomy and philosophy. They know that as to the arrangement of the parts of the universe, I hold the sun to be situated motionless in the center of the revolution of the celestial orbs while the earth revolves about the sun. They know also that I support this position not only by refuting the arguments of Ptolemy and Aristotle, but by producing many counter-arguments; in particular, some which relate to physical effects whose causes can perhaps be assigned in no other way. In addition there are astronomical arguments derived from many things in my new celestial discoveries that plainly confute the Ptolemaic system while admirably agreeing with and confirming the contrary hypothesis.
Galileo Galilei
