“Can I get anyone anything?” is a standard get-out-of-room-quick card and can be played whenever uncomfortable circumstances, ranging from mild embarrassment to major impending doom, are fast approaching. Most cultures have a variation on the “can I get anyone anything,” and they are so obviously rhetorical that they barely merit a question mark.
Eoin Colfer: And Another Thing...
It is a universal maxim that if someone goes to the trouble of printing something on a T-shirt, then it is almost definitely not a hundred percent untrue, which is to say that it is more than likely fairly definitely not altogether false.
Neal Stephenson: Termination Shock
But maybe you overrate the value of discussing things. There is a reason why I don’t hire a lot of Ph.D.s. I have a Ph.D., Dr. Castelein. I seen how the sausage is made. And the problem with Ph.D.-havers is overthinking. Y’all live in this alternate universe where everything has to be made perfect sense of before y’all can do anything.
Neal Stephenson: Termination Shock
In Amsterdam’s central train station, there was a special waiting room, technically for the use of Saskia or whoever was currently king or queen, but never actually used because it was so outrageously non-norMAL.
[...]
“Who writes it?” “Parliament. In the Netherlands we call it the States General.” “And who you reading it to?” “The States General.” “So you could just be cut out of the loop and save yourself the trouble!”
[...]
Now, trying to get Dutch people to prepare for disasters was a little like trying to get English people to watch football on the telly or Americans to buy guns.
Neal Stephenson: Termination Shock
I was a twenty-seven-year-old college dropout before I finally met some real mathematicians and found that those people don’t even give a shit about calculus.
Neal Stephenson: Termination Shock
