Cory Doctorow Quotes

Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time-rich and cash-poor.

The important thing about security systems isn’t how they work, it’s how they fail.

Abnormal is so common, it's practically normal.

It's the stupid questions that have some of the most surprising and interesting answers. Most people never think to ask the stupid questions.

We have a name for things that don't copy themselves: dead.

The fact is, almost everything you do is collaborative. Somewhere out there, someone else had a hand it it.

I can't go underground for a year, ten years, my whole life, waiting for freedom to be handed to me. Freedom is something you have to take for yourself.

Universal access to human knowledge is in our grasp, for the first time in the history of the world. This is not a bad thing.

This is why I loved technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy.

Write even when the world is chaotic. You don’t need a cigarette, silence, music, a comfortable chair, or inner peace to write. You just need ten minutes and a writing implement.

We don’t care about what you did yesterday—we care about what you’re going to do tomorrow.

Where there's life, there's hope. Living people can change things, dead people cannot.

What if I got hit by lightning while walking with an umbrella? Ban umbrellas! Fight the menace of lightning!

Any time someone puts a lock on something you own against your wishes, and doesn't give you the key, they're not doing it for your benefit.

If you stare at someone long enough, they'll eventually look back at you.

The future's a weirder place than we thought it would be when we were little kids.

The first casualty of any battle is the plan of attack.

I'm 17 years old. I'm not a straight-A student or anything. Even so, I figured out how to make an Internet that they can't wiretap. I figured out how to jam their person-tracking technology. I can turn innocent people into suspects and turn guilty people into innocents in their eyes. I could get metal onto an airplane or beat a no-fly list. I figured this stuff out by looking at the web and by thinking about it. If I can do it, terrorists can do it. They told us they took away our freedom to make us safe. Do you feel safe?

Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about.

We're going to fight this battle with everything we have, and we will probably lose. But then we will fight it again, and we will lose a little less, for this battle will win us many supporters. And then we'll lose *again*. And *again*. And we will fight on. Because as hard as it is to win by fighting, it's impossible to win by doing nothing.

Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

The opposite of esprit d'escalier is the way that life's embarrassments come back to haunt us even after they're long past. I could remember every stupid thing I'd ever said or done, recall them with picture-perfect clarity. Any time I was feeling low, I'd naturally start to remember other times I felt that way, a hit parade of humiliations coming one after another to my mind.

It may be hard to monetize fame, but it is impossible to monetize obscurity.

All secrets become deep. All secrets become dark. That's in the nature of secrets.

It is a mistake to let aesthetics drive your rational decision making.