Top quotes by Cory Doctorow

The other one I did was 'I, Robot.' I take apart Isaac Asimov's Robots world. Votes: 16

Take it from someone who's read the Wikipedia entry: this is how the Ottoman Empire was won: madden horsemen fueled by lethal jet-black coffee-mud. Votes: 15

Businesses are great structures for managing big projects. It's like trying to develop the ability to walk without developing a skeleton. Once in a blue moon, you get an octopus, but for the most part, you get skeletons. Skeletons are good shit. Votes: 13

It's a story of little girls who are pressed into working in sweat shops in games, who spend all day doing repetitive grinding tasks like making shirts, which are then converted into gold and sold on eBay. Votes: 11

... the Kindle is a "roach motel" device: its license terms and DRM ensure that books can check in, but they can't check out. Votes: 9

... I think that I was too self-centered to ever develop good skills as a peacemaker. In my younger days, I assumed that it was because I was smarter than everyone else, with no patience for explaining things in short words for mouthbreathers who just didn't get it. Votes: 9

Put simply, I want to treat my readers as partners and not crooks. There is no future in calling your most active promoters crooks. Votes: 8

Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Votes: 8

It is a mistake to let aesthetics drive your rational decision making. Votes: 8

Skipping school isn't a crime. It's an infraction. They're totally different. Votes: 8

The fact is, almost everything you do is collaborative. Somewhere out there, someone else had a hand it it. Votes: 7

Giant letters march across the dome of the sky: HOME NOT FOUND. Huw, who knows Comic Sans when she sees it, winces in mild disgust. Votes: 7

It's part of a cycle of stories I'm writing where I deconstruct classic science fiction. Votes: 6

If this prinicpal thinks blogging isn't educational, he needs his head examined: he should be seeking out every student blogger in the school and giving them special time to blog more - and giving them extra credit besides. Votes: 6

I fireballed him as he was seeking out treasure after we wiped out a band of orcs, playing rock-paper-scissors with each orc to determine who would prevail in combat. This is a lot more exciting than it sounds. It's quite civilized, and a little weird. You go running after someone through the woods, catch up with him, bare your teeth, and sit down to play a little roshambo. Votes: 6

The opposite of esprit d'escalier is the way that life's embarrassments come back to haunt us even after they're long past. I could remember every stupid thing I'd ever said or done, recall them with picture-perfect clarity. Any time I was feeling low, I'd naturally start to remember other times I felt that way, a hit parade of humiliations coming one after another to my mind. Votes: 5

Universal access to human knowledge is in our grasp, for the first time in the history of the world. This is not a bad thing. Votes: 5

When you teach your students that it's "economically rational" to commit crimes where the fines for misconduct are lower than the expected return on the crime, you instill a professional ethic that has no room for morals. Votes: 5

Content isn't king. If I sent you to a desert island and gave you the choice of taking your friends or your movies, you'd choose your friends -- if you chose the movies, we'd call you a sociopath. Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about. Votes: 4

I had this really great amazing thing happen where I almost finished the book and I really needed to come up with an ending and I decided to go back and re-read the book and see if I could come up with an ending. Votes: 3

The accolade of your peers is very exciting, always. There's lots of good stuff on the ballot. Votes: 3

It's hard not to like Asimov; he's a really likable guy. Votes: 3

Write even when the world is chaotic. You don’t need a cigarette, silence, music, a comfortable chair, or inner peace to write. You just need ten minutes and a writing implement. Votes: 3

Once you get to naming your laptop, you know that you're really having a deep relationship with it. Votes: 2

I'm not a lawyer I'm a kind of mouthpiece/activist type, though occasionally they shave me and stuff me into my Bar Mitzvah suit and send me to a standards body or the UN to stir up trouble. I spend about three weeks a month on the road doing completely weird stuff like going to Microsoft to talk about DRM. Votes: 2

The real damage from terrorist attacks doesn't come from the explosion. The real damage is done after the explosion, by the victims, who repeatedly and determinedly attack themselves, giving over reason in favor of terror... Terrorism is about magnifying one mediagenic act of violence into one hundred billion acts of terrorized authoritarian idiocy. Votes: 2

Where there's life, there's hope. Living people can change things, dead people cannot. Votes: 2

Every time I go past a cinema and see a queue out the door, I think, look at those fools, every penny they spend is turned into profits that are used to pass laws imprisoning their own children. Can't they see? Votes: 2

It's as if the railroad were looming on the horizon, and the most visionary thing the futurists of the day can think of to say about it is that these iron horses will have a disastrous effect on the hardworking manufacturers of oat-bags for horses. Votes: 1

Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time-rich and cash-poor. Votes: 0

I'd never been a tall guy, and the girls I'd dated had all been my height--teenaged girls grow faster than guys, which is a cruel trick of nature. Votes: 0

We don’t care about what you did yesterday—we care about what you’re going to do tomorrow. Votes: 0

We're going to fight this battle with everything we have, and we will probably lose. But then we will fight it again, and we will lose a little less, for this battle will win us many supporters. And then we'll lose *again*. And *again*. And we will fight on. Because as hard as it is to win by fighting, it's impossible to win by doing nothing. Votes: 0

It's our goddamed city! It's our goddamed country. No terrorist can take it from us for so long as we're free. Once we're not free, the terrorists win! Take it back! You're young enough and stupid enough not to know that you can't possibly win, so you're the only ones who can lead us to victory! Take it back! Votes: 0

Any time someone puts a lock on something you own against your wishes, and doesn't give you the key, they're not doing it for your benefit. Votes: 0

Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about. Votes: 0

Like all security, privacy is hard. Votes: 0

Engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff. Votes: 0

It's the stupid questions that have some of the most surprising and interesting answers. Most people never think to ask the stupid questions. Votes: 0

The good news (for writers) is that this means that ebooks on computers are more likely to be an enticement to buy the printed book (which is, after all, cheap, easily had, and easy to use) than a substitute for it. You can probably read just enough of the book off the screen to realize you want to be reading it on paper. Votes: 0

I don't know anything about press conferences." "Oh, just Google it. I'm sure someone's written an article on holding a successful one. I mean, if the President can manage it, I'm sure you can. He looks like he can barely tie his shoes without help. Votes: 0

The companies are multinational--why should labor still stick to borders? Votes: 0

Stories are propaganda, virii that slide past your critical immune system and insert themselves directly into your emotions. Votes: 0

I can't go underground for a year, ten years, my whole life, waiting for freedom to be handed to me. Freedom is something you have to take for yourself. Votes: 0

Right, and you point out something important which is that people who don’t want to pay, people who are pirates, don’t get bothered by the DRM, they go out and buy the cracked books or download the cracked books for free. It’s only people who are foolish enough to pay for them that get locked into these platforms. Votes: 0

We roared. We were one big animal throat, roaring. Votes: 0

All secrets become deep. All secrets become dark. That's in the nature of secrets. Votes: 0

Novels for me are how I find out what's going on in my own head. And so that's a really useful and indeed critical thing to do when you do as many of these other things as I do. Votes: 0

The first casualty of any battle is the plan of attack. Votes: 0

He hated it when adults told him he only felt the way he did because he was young. As if being young was like being insane or drunk, like the convictions he held were hallucinations caused by a mental illness that could only be cured by waiting five years. Votes: 0

The future's a weirder place than we thought it would be when we were little kids. Votes: 0

The United States of America was a pirate nation for the first one hundred years of its existence, ripping off the patents and trademarks of the imperial European powers it had liberated itself from by blood. By keeping their GDP at home, the U.S. revolutionaries were able to bootstrap their nation into an industrial powerhouse. Now, it seems, their descendants are bent on ensuring that no other country can pull the same trick off. Votes: 0

Funny, for all surveillance, Osama bin Laden is still free—and we're not. Guess who's winning the "war on terror? Votes: 0

if it's not in my email archive, I don't know it Votes: 0

Write even when the world is chaotic. Votes: 0

[O]pen platforms and experimental amateurs ... eventually beat out the spendy, slick pros. ... Relying on incumbents to produce your revolutions is not a good strategy. They're apt to take all the stuff that makes their products great and try to use technology to charge you extra for it, or prohibit it altogether. Votes: 0

If the best way to learn to succeed is to fail as fast as possible, then the second-best way is to watch someone else fail as fast as possible. Watching someone else screw up is a kind of rehearsal for your own eventual downfall. A close observation of someone else's attempt to resolve a difficulty is a great way to acquire real-world insight into whether and when to deploy their method in your own times of trouble. Votes: 0

It's not necessarily about what career you pick. It's about how you do what you do. Votes: 0

No one should do a job he can do in his sleep. Votes: 0

We have a name for things that don't copy themselves: dead. Votes: 0

It may be hard to monetize fame, but it is impossible to monetize obscurity. Votes: 0

Terrorism is about magnifying one mediagenic act of violence into one hundred billion acts of terrorized authoritarian idiocy. Votes: 0

For decades, computers have been helping us to remember, but now it's time for them to help us to ignore. Votes: 0

Any outfit that can't figure out clean toilets and decent theming on its own can't benefit from my advice. Votes: 0

Everyone wants a definition of creativity that makes what they do into something special and what everyone else does into nothing special. But the fact is, we're all creative. We come up with weird and interesting ideas all the time. The biggest difference between 'creators' isn't their imagination - it's how hard they work. Ideas are easy. Doing stuff is hard. Votes: 0

I think that Utopia is a theory of human action... Votes: 0

Most of the books, music and movies ever released are not available for sale, anywhere in the world. In the brief time that P2P nets have flourished, the ad-hoc masses of the Internet have managed to put just about everything online. What's more, they've done it far cheaper than any other archiving/revival effort ever. Votes: 0

Technology giveth and technology taketh away. Votes: 0

Stop in the middle of a sentence, leaving a rough edge for you to start from the nest day - that way, you can write three or five words without being “creative” and before you know it, you're writing. Votes: 0

It is not gender, nor age, nor race, but your ability to work hard at what you love. Votes: 0

The important thing about security systems isn’t how they work, it’s how they fail. Votes: 0

There are people already sharing eBooks out there, .. and they do it simply because they love books. You don't buy a second copy of a book, cut the spine off, lay each page on a scanner, run that .tif through an OCR (Optical Character Reader), hand edit the resulting output for errors and then post it online if you don't love the book. it can up to 80 hours to turn a printed novel into an eBook. I figure if someone out there is willing to put in 80 hours of work promoting my book, then I'd prefer they do it in a way that gives a better return to me. Votes: 0

My feelings towards Scott Card are pretty mixed. Politically, he and I are pretty far apart. Votes: 0

The big problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity. Votes: 0

If you've never programmed a computer, you should. There's nothing like it in the whole world. When you program a computer, it does exactly what you tell it to do. It's like designing a machine — any machine, like a car, like a faucet, like a gas-hinge for a door — using math and instructions. It's awesome in the truest sense: it can fill you with awe. Votes: 0

What if I got hit by lightning while walking with an umbrella? Ban umbrellas! Fight the menace of lightning! Votes: 0

Abnormal is so common, it's practically normal. Votes: 0

Each generation of rabbis is necessarily less perfect than the rabbis that came before, since each generation is more removed from the perfection of the Garden. Therefore, no rabbi is allowed to overturn any of his forebears' wisdom, since they are all, by definition, smarter than him. Votes: 0

This is why I loved technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy. Votes: 0

If you stare at someone long enough, they'll eventually look back at you. Votes: 0

He had them as spellbound as a room full of Ewoks listening to C-3PO. Votes: 0

I'm 17 years old. I'm not a straight-A student or anything. Even so, I figured out how to make an Internet that they can't wiretap. I figured out how to jam their person-tracking technology. I can turn innocent people into suspects and turn guilty people into innocents in their eyes. I could get metal onto an airplane or beat a no-fly list. I figured this stuff out by looking at the web and by thinking about it. If I can do it, terrorists can do it. They told us they took away our freedom to make us safe. Do you feel safe? Votes: 0

The right to freedom of association is fine, but why shouldn't the cops be allowed to mine your social network to figure out if you're hanging out with gangbangers and terrorists? Votes: 0

There is no future in which bits will be harder to copy than they are today ... Any business model that based on the idea that bits will be harder to copy is doomed. Votes: 0

Digital Distribution and the Whip Hand: Don't Get iTunesed with your eBooks Votes: 0

If surgeons don't get surgeon's block, then why are you allowed to get writer's block? Votes: 0

I just sit down and the page just comes out and I look at it and the elements that appear on that page have a lot to do with what's going on in my life. Votes: 0

Freedom is something you have to take for yourself. Votes: 0

I choose YouTube over telly. Votes: 0

Disney is a delight, someone who ... sweeps those around him along on his dream. Votes: 0

These days, tales of what Facebook did with its users during the singularity are commonly used to scare naughty children in Wales. Votes: 0

Carlton Mellick III is one of bizarro fiction's most talented practitioners, a virtuoso of the surreal, science fictional tale. Votes: 0

The idea that bigger haystacks have more needles in them is dumb on its face Votes: 0