I think I'd probably tell you that it's easier to desire and pursue the attention of tens of millions of total strangers than it is to accept the love and loyalty of the people closest to us.
Interpretation
Pursuing the admiration of many is often easier than accepting intimacy from those we know best.
In this quote, William Gibson highlights the paradox of human relationships, suggesting that it can be more convenient to seek validation and attention from a large crowd of strangers than to embrace the deep, often challenging connection with loved ones. The complexities and vulnerabilities involved in accepting love and loyalty from close ones can make it feel more daunting than the superficial pursuit of broader recognition.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of personal relationships, this quote can demonstrate the value of valuing those close to us over public admiration.
She knows, now, absolutely, hearing the white noise that is London, that Damien's theory of jet lag is correct: that her mortal soul is leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands of feet above the Atlantic. Souls can't move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.
If you've read a lot of vintage science fiction, as I have at one time or another in my life, you can't help but realise how wrong we get it. I have gotten it wrong more times than I've gotten it right. But I knew that when I started; I knew that before I wrote a word of science fiction.
As a writer of fiction who deals with technology, I necessarily deal with the history of technology and the history of technologically induced social change. I roam up and down it in a kind of special way because I roam down it into history, which is invariably itself a speculative affair.
His eyes were eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a frequency whose name was rain and the sound of trains, suddenly sprouting a humming forest of hair-fine glass spines.
I don't have to write about the future. For most people, the present is enough like the future to be pretty scary.
I think that technologies are morally neutral until we apply them. It's only when we use them for good or for evil that they become good or evil.
I think, really, that the only way a person can open their heart to someone who is so much another is really by knowing them... whether that's in a classroom, or a soccer team, or a food pantry, or any of those things. I mean, we're kind of more alike than we are different.
You know your problem, Quentin? You keep expecting people not to be themselves.
The implication that women are poised to make unfounded accusations in droves is even more alarming when every piece of data on false reporting contradicts that false notion. We need to believe women and believe in women.
Social Networking that matters is helping people archive their goals. Doing it reliably and repeatability so that over time people have an interest in helping you achieve your goals.
Some friends of Israel believe that the Palestinians will never, in their hearts, accept a Jewish state in Palestine. Yet Germans and French, Chinese and Japanese, Mexicans and Americans have overcome their once insurmountable differences. Palestinians and Jews also have much to gain from peaceful coexistence.
I'm very fortunate to have a coach that I got to stay with all this time. Every year the bond gets stronger and better, and we understand each other more. And it's like she can tell if I walk into the gym what kind of mood I'm in, what she has to fix for the practice I need, or how I'm feeling.
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