45 William Gibson Quotes for You to Enjoy

William Gibson

American Writer

Born: Mar 17, 1948

About Me People Science Think You

Related authors: Dale Carnegie Denis Waitley Dr. Seuss H. L. Mencken Napoleon Hill Ray Bradbury W. E. B. Du Bois William Arthur Ward

The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet. William Gibson

Wisdom Future Distributed Arrived Just

It's impossible to move, to live, to operate at any level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly meaningless fragments of personal information. William Gibson

Technology Impossible Live Fragments Bits Seemingly Operate Traces Without Leaving Personal Any Move Personal Information Information Meaningless Level

I started with Apple, in a pre-Windows era when PCs seemed to involve more of a learning curve. But the fact that I'm yet to acquire so much as a single virus still seems a very good thing. William Gibson

I'm often saddened and dismayed to see myself portrayed as either a Luddite or as a raving technophile. I've always thought that my job was to be as anthropologically neutral about emerging technologies as possible. William Gibson

Myself Job Thought Dismayed Possible See About Emerging Neutral Raving Saddened Always Often Either Technologies Portrayed

I'm always interested in the spooky repurposing of everyday things. William Gibson

Spooky Everyday Always Interested Things

I don't begin a novel with a shopping list - the novel becomes my shopping list as I write it. William Gibson

Shopping Write Becomes Begin List Novel

A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding. William Gibson

I didn't have a manifesto. I had some discontent. It seemed to me that midcentury mainstream American science fiction had often been triumphalist and militaristic, a sort of folk propaganda for American exceptionalism. William Gibson

Me Science Folk Some Propaganda Seemed Had Mainstream Sort Science Fiction Discontent Been American Often Fiction Manifesto

I think that our future has lost that capital F we used to spell it with. The science fiction future of my childhood has had a capital F - it was assumed to be an American Future because America was the future. The Future was assumed to be inherently heroic, and a lot of other things, as well. William Gibson

I'm not a computer guy. I'm like an anthropologist. I'm fascinated with people's obsessions. I've learned to wear them. William Gibson

People Wear Guy Computer Obsessions Like Learned Anthropologist Them Fascinated

Generation X is dead. It has come to mean anyone aged 13 to 55 years old. William Gibson

Generation Old Generation X Come Dead Years Anyone Aged Mean

Dreaming in public is an important part of our job description, as science writers, but there are bad dreams as well as good dreams. We're dreamers, you see, but we're also realists, of a sort. William Gibson

I don't have to write about the future. For most people, the present is enough like the future to be pretty scary. William Gibson

Future People Enough Pretty About Scary Write Like Most Present

A snappy label and a manifesto would have been two of the very last things on my own career want list. That label enabled mainstream science fiction to safely assimilate our dissident influence, such as it was. Cyberpunk could then be embraced and given prizes and patted on the head, and genre science fiction could continue unchanged. William Gibson

Science Own Our Would Embraced My Own Given Unchanged Could Head Mainstream Genre Safely Science Fiction Continue Been Snappy Label Very Prizes List Influence Want Fiction Manifesto Then Things Assimilate Last Career Two

I think with one exception I've never changed an opening sentence after a book was completed. William Gibson

Book Think Changed Completed Exception Never Opening After Sentence

Sometimes, I can myself be frustrated by books that seem to me to be insufficiently realistic about the world's potential for just being totally a randomly bad place. William Gibson

Myself Me World Sometimes Realistic Books Randomly Bad Totally About Seem Potential Just Being Place Frustrated

I'm quite good friends with the putative director, Vincenzo Natali, and I'm a big fan of his work, but beyond that, I don't like to talk about other people's work work-in-progress. William Gibson

Work Good Director People Big Good Friends Other About Like Beyond Talk Big Fan His Friends Quite Fan

I've become convinced that nostalgia is a fundamentally unhealthy modality. When you see it, it's usually attached to something else that's really, seriously bad. I don't traffic in nostalgia. We're becoming a global culture. William Gibson

You Culture Seriously Become Else Bad See Something Something Else Attached Global Becoming Traffic Nostalgia Unhealthy Really Convinced Fundamentally

All we really have when we pretend to write about the future is the moment in which we are writing. That's why every imagined future obsoletes like an ice cream melting on the way back from the corner store. William Gibson

The people I hang out with tend to use Macs, not that I think they're necessarily superior. William Gibson

People Superior Think Out Tend Hang Use Necessarily

I guess Twitter is the first thing that has been attractive to me as social media. I never felt the least draw to Facebook or MySpace. I've been involved anonymously in some tiny listservs, mainly in my ceaseless quest for random novelty, and sometimes while doing something that more closely resembles research. William Gibson

Me Facebook Sometimes Social Media Random First Research Twitter Guess Draw Has-Been Some Something More Myspace Never Mainly Involved Attractive Anonymously First Thing Felt Least Doing Been Quest Ceaseless Closely The First Thing Tiny While Social Resembles Novelty Media Thing

I don't generate a storyline and then fill it out in the course of writing. The story actually generates in the course of the writing. It's one of the reasons I've never been comfortable doing screenplays, because in order to get the contract for the screenplay, you have to sit down and tell them what's going to happen. William Gibson

You Writing Sit Down Out Tell Never Generate Course Comfortable Because Doing Been Contract Get Going Order Screenplay Screenplays Happen Story Storyline Them Then Reasons Fill Actually

Futurists get to a certain age and, as one does, they suddenly recognize their own mortality. William Gibson

Age Own Recognize Mortality Does Get Certain Certain Age Suddenly

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