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

“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 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

“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

“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

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

“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

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

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

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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“What I mean by graceful degradation,” continued Chuck as Sarah filled his plate, “is that there’s no longer a way to revert to previous technology if something fails.” “Example?” “Like this logistics thing that screwed up shipping. Everything is ‘just in time,’ with a handful of central warehouses located in the middle of nowhere that stock almost nothing.” “So no local stock if the supply chain gets disrupted?” “Exactly. The complex systems supporting cities are balanced on a knife’s edge. Knock out one supporting leg—logistics, for instance—and poof,” said Chuck, blowing on his hand, “the whole thing goes down. Supply chain attack is the big weakness.” “So”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“—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

“This cyberwar felt like it had nothing to do with the future but was a part of the past, as if we were burrowing backwards into humans’ unending ability to inflict suffering upon one another.”
― 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

“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

“Sometimes things break apart,” read the message, “so that better things can come together.” Below this was the attribution: “Marilyn Monroe.”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm

“covered”
― Matthew Mather, CyberStorm