William Gibson Quotes

One does not contemplate it like a picture. The idea of contemplation disappears completely. Simply take note that it's a bottle rack, or that it's a bottle rack that has changed its destination... It's not the visual question of the readymade that counts; it's the fact that it exists, even.

You know my feelings: every day is a gift. It's just, does it have to be socks?

The pop artists did images that anybody walking down Broadway could recognize in a split second — comics, picnic tables, men’s trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coke bottles. All the great modern things that the Abstract Expressionists tried not to notice at all.

I love all things, not because they are passionate or sweet-smelling but because, I don't know, because this ocean is yours, and mine: these buttons and wheels and little forgotten treasures, fans upon whose feathers love has scattered its blossoms, glasses, knives and scissors -- all bear the trace of someone's fingers on their handle or surface, the trace of a distant hand lost in the depths of forgetfulness.

Lord Maccon, being Lord Maccon and good at such things, then changed, right there in the Thames, from dog-paddling wolf to large man treading water. He did so flawlessly, so that his head never went under the water. Professor Lyall suspected him of practicing such maneuvers in the bathtub.

Come to think of it, just about every tool was shaped like either a weenie or a pistol, depending on your point of view.

Pop art is for everyone.

Columbia Heights was a poor, messed up area, and the church was in the middle of it. What happened inside was a reflection of the community. I actually saw my first rock concert on the altar of that church [St. Stephen's].

Although the point of blogging is that it doesn't pay, I often steal from my blog for paid publication. I've based several magazine essays on blog posts, as well as an entire book.

Genuinely ubiquitous computing spreads like warm Vaseline.

Whenever God restores something, He restores it to a place greater than it was before.

It would be very interesting to design objects for everyday life, something where the ideas that are expressed can be launched into society.

Nothing comes from nothing, Thieflet; no story comes from nowhere; new stories are born from old--it is the new combinations that make them new.

You have to have something vicious in you to be a creative writersomething old-adamish, incompatible to the "ordinary world.

The artistic desire reveals itself in dark form - in karaoke bars [or] trolling on the Internet.

Gleaning is getting things that are abandoned. I did not abandon my early pictures, my photos, my early films. It's just going through my body of work as something I can pick from.

And that's when Anna realized that what the wolf had been asking Bran for was death. Impulsively, Anna stepped away from Charles. She put a knee on the bench she'd been sitting on and reached over the back to close her hand on Asil's wrist, which was lying across the back of the pew. He hissed in shock but didn't pull away. As she held him the scent of wilderness, of sickness, faded. He stared at her, the whites of his eyes showing brightly while his irises narrowed to small bands around his black pupil. "Omega," he whispered, his breath coming harshly.

There is probably some long-standing "rule" among writers, journalists, and other word-mongers that says: "When you start stealing from your own work you're in bad trouble." And it may be true.

Some days I'm very lazy, and some days I'm more inspired. I've got things I've had since I was fifteen - I don't throw anything away. I prefer to give it to a friend so I can wear it again...The way I dress doesn't necessarily have to do with fashion, or what is current, or what is in right now, it's more about rediscovering things.

Use crazy glue and nails to turn a rocking chair into just a chair that looks like a rocking chair.

God works with power, and can make the unwilling willing; if He undertakes the conversion of a soul, it will be converted. All the pious workings of our heart towards God are the fruit and consequence of the powerful working of His grace in us.

What you describe is how it happens to everyone: magic does slide through you, and disappear, and come back later looking like something else. And I'm sorry to tell you this, but where your magic lives will always be a great dark space with scraps you fumble for. You must learn to sniff them out in the dark.

When you give up a bit of work don't (unless it is hopelessly bad) throw it away. Put it in a drawer. It may come in useful later. Much of my best work, or what I think my best, is the re-writing of things begun and abandoned years earlier.

Paper should be edible, nutritious. Inks used for printing or writing should have delicious flavors. Magazines or newspapers read at breakfast should be eaten for lunch. Instead of throwing one's mail in the waste-basket, it should be saved for the dinner guests.