Matthew Mather > Quotes

“Technology couldn't revert, but humans could, and they did with startling ease and rapidity when the trappings of the modern world melted away. The tribal animal was always there, hiding just beneath our thin skins of lattes and cell phones and cable TV.”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“The separation between the cyber and the physical worlds was disappearing. Cyberbullying was just bullying, and cyberwar was just war - the true age of cyber began when we started removing it as a descriptor.”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“Without artificial light, humans were scared animals that scurried into their nests at sunset. Darkness brought out the monsters that existed in our primal collective imaginations, the creatures from under the bed, all of which disappeared with the flick of a switch and the warm glow of an incandescent bulb. Modern cities were filled with massive and awe-inspiring structures, but without artificial light,”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“If you don’t pay for a product, then you are the product.”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“We only see two things in people, Jake’s dad used to say. What we want to see, and what they show us. Neither was the truth, and”
― Matthew Mather, Darknet

“Freedom is civil liberty, and the foundation of civil liberty is privacy. No privacy means no civil liberty means no freedom. You know why they don’t just fingerprint everyone?”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“For just a moment I allowed myself the pleasure of watching her naked, wet body climb out of the tub.”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“Digital death followed long after physical death.”
― Matthew Mather, Darknet

“Freedom is civil liberty, and the foundation of civil liberty is privacy. No privacy means no civil liberty means no freedom.”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“Technology couldn’t revert, but humans could, and they did so with startling ease and swiftness when the trappings of the modern world melted away.”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“The criminals force society to improve. They weed out the weak, making us strengthen our institutions and networks.”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“She sighed and pushed herself back into me. “Mike, I’m so proud of you.” In one motion, she swiveled around in the tub and kissed me wetly. “I love you.” Reaching down, I gripped her buttocks and pulled her up onto me. I was aroused, and she smiled, biting my lip. Just then there was a loud rap on the door.”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“The man with no future, who existed only in the moment, was invisible to a world fixated on anywhere but where they actually were.”
― Matthew Mather, The Complete Atopia Chronicles

“We only see two things in people, Jake’s dad used to say. What we want to see, and what they show us. Neither was the truth,”
― Matthew Mather, Darknet

“Sometimes I guess you really did have to lose yourself to find yourself.”
― Matthew Mather, The Atopia Chronicles

“Any technology that was sufficiently advanced seemed like magic to someone unfamiliar,”
― Matthew Mather, The Atopia Chronicles

“For thirty or forty years, through middle age, they would look almost exactly the same, and then all of a sudden the decades would pile on in months.”
― Matthew Mather, Darknet

“1910 there were more electric-powered cars on the streets of New York than gas-powered ones, and everyone back then assumed that electric cars were the future—they made a lot more sense than the crazy engines that ran on controlled explosions of volatile, toxic chemicals. But Rockefeller funded Ford to make sure that gas-powered cars, not electric, would be the way of the future, so he would have a place to sell his oil.” “I”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“Do people really want to make the world a better place?” I asked. “Or do they just want to make a better place for themselves within it? Almost everything humans do is self-serving in the end.”
― Matthew Mather, The Atopia Chronicles

“The existentialists did say that life was all about pulling the victory of meaning from the jaws of senseless absurdity”
― Matthew Mather, The Complete Atopia Chronicles

“Nothing more than a simple panic attack.” The doctor’s bald pate reflected the overhead panel lighting like a shimmering, sweaty halo above his radiantly clean lab coat. A stethoscope hung uselessly around his neck. He leaned forward over his desk and clasped his hands, bringing them up to support his chin in what I assumed was his thoughtful pose. “Are you still smoking?”
― Matthew Mather, The Atopia Chronicles

“I dreamt of babies with blue eyes, alive but never living, their blue eyes filling blue seas with blue pain.”
― Matthew Mather, The Atopia Chronicles

“—Esto —dijo I rena, señalando hacia el techo y sorbiendo aire por la nariz—, no es un ataque. Un ataque es cuando alguien te apunta a la
cabeza con un arma de fuego. Estos criminales se arrastran en la oscuridad.”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“No risk,” said Chuck, wagging one finger in the air, “equals no freedom.”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“A cross-country bus tour before the final leg of the election had sounded good on paper last April when they were planning it in New Hampshire. But down here in North Carolina, on a sweltering August morning after sleeping in this coffin on wheels for six days? Not so much.”
― Matthew Mather, Darknet

“Just the wrong perspective,” he said. “We’re squaring them up to be the enemy, but mostly because we need an enemy.” “So you’re saying you’re wrong about the cyberthreat?” “No, but . . .” Chuck left his fork in the fries and picked up a shrimp with his fingers. “But what?” “Maybe we’re blinding ourselves to the real enemy.” “What enemy is that, my conspiracy-loving friend?” I asked, rolling my eyes, expecting some rhetoric about the CIA or NSA. Chuck finished shelling his shrimp and pointed it at me. “Fear. Fear is the real enemy.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Fear and ignorance.” I laughed. “With all this stuff you’re stockpiling, aren’t you the one that’s afraid?” “Not afraid,” he said deliberately, looking straight into my eyes. “Prepared.”  ”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“We were locked down tighter than a nun’s thighs, and that’s just how I liked it.”
― Matthew Mather, The Atopia Chronicles

“I thought about it, and you’re right. Fear isn’t the answer. If we’re afraid of everything, then we’re afraid to do anything, and that means we’re giving up our freedom. You were right!” Over”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“Jess?” He appeared and stood on the landing, concern worrying his eyes. “Enzo said you wanted to see me? Are you all right? Is your father good?” “He’s fine. Everyone’s fine.”
― Matthew Mather, Nomad

“pulled the catfish out of the water, and it dangled in front of us, trapped by something it didn’t understand.”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm