An important part of the Internet is that it provides a space for people whose identities are socially unacceptable. If it enables someone who feels minoritised to be who they want to be, it’s actually worth having other people be offensive. I’d much rather have both than have neither. Nick Harkaway Read Quote
The idea that the law should punish what is rude; that government should protect our tender sensibilities from those who would – quite often with shallow motivations but sometimes with deeper and more serious complaints – challenge our national certainties and rituals, should alarm and anger us. Nick Harkaway Read Quote
Sir Terry Pratchett – he was knighted in 2009, and on him it looked earned rather than entitled – wrote about dragons, wizards, turtles, witches, time-travelling monks, and suitcases with legs. Nick Harkaway Read Quote
The mainstream of literary culture in the U.K. is very averse to writing about technology. Nick Harkaway Read Quote
I grew up on the Roger Moore and Sean Connery Bond movies, so the DNA of my spies is extremely ridiculous and goofy. Nick Harkaway Read Quote
Peace is not a state – it is a choice, and you have to remake it every day. It’s possible to get a sort of stability, a habit of peace, but it’s like an egg balanced, spinning, on its point: lose your momentum, and your equilibrium is gone, too. Nick Harkaway Read Quote