Maureen F. McHugh Quotes

Staying married to one person was boring. She figured she was too complicated for that. Interesting people had complicated lives.

One of her secret fantasies had been that, as a girl who could code, she would work in the one place where a geeky fat girl could get dates. It had not been entirely untrue. But as someone had pointed out to her in school, although the odds are good, the goods are odd.

Government is big, we are small. We are only free when we slip through the cracks.

She had a theory that the fear of getting in trouble was what made her not as good a programmer and that, in fact, it was all linked to testosterone, and that was why there were more guy programmers than women. It was a very hazy theory, and she didn't like it, but she had pretty much convinced herself it was true, although she couldn't bear to think of sharing it with anybody, because it was a lot better to think that there were social reasons why girls didn't usually become code monkeys than to think there were biological reasons.

We do not want to be haunds, teacher. We just want the haunds to go elsewhere for easy prey.

Children are a blessing. They are a happiness so sharp that it feels like pain.

The Second Koran tells us that the darkness in ourselves is a sinister thing. It waits until we relax, it waits until we reach the most vulnerable moments, and then it snares us. I want to be dutiful. I want to do what I should. But when I go back to the tube, I think of where I am going; to that small house and my empty room. What will I do tonight? Make more paper flowers, more wreaths? I am sick of them. Sick of the Nekro

In my experience ideology is a lot like religion it's a belief system and most people cling to it long after it becomes clear that their ideology doesn't describe the real world.