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.

Sydney did not believe in life after death, but in her experience, admitting this could lead to long and complicated discussions in which people seemed to think that since she did not believe in God or the afterlife, there was nothing to stop her from becoming an ax murderer.

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.