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.
Two aged men, that had been foes for life, Met by a grave, and wept - and in those tears They washed away the memory of their strife; Then wept again the loss of all those years.
We looked at each other for the last time; nothing is as eloquent as nothing.
You cannot share your life with a dog, as I had done in Bournemouth, or a cat, and not know perfectly well that animals have personalities and minds and feelings.
After the discovery in 1918 of love letters revealing that Franklin was involved with Lucy Mercer: The bottom dropped out of my own particular world, I faced myself, my surroundings, my world, honestly for the first time.
I don't believe professional athletes should be role models. I believe parents should be role models.
When I was a little girl I used to read fairy tales. In fairy tales you meet Prince Charming and he's everything you ever wanted. In fairy tales the bad guy is very easy to spot. The bad guy is always wearing a black cape so you always know who he is. Then you grow up and you realize that Prince Charming is not as easy to find as you thought. You realize the bad guy is not wearing a black cape and he's not easy to spot; he's really funny, and he makes you laugh, and he has perfect hair.
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