How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
It's better to be conservative and take what you can get than take a big gamble and blow it, so Enzo reaches in, even as Raven is looking down at him, and severs Raven's left Achilles tendon. (70.9)
Uncle Enzo's forethought and experience in the battlefield allow him to disable Raven—something no one else in the book has been able to do. Raven reacts quickly enough to strike a critical blow to Enzo, though, leading to the eternal question: Would you bet on experience and wisdom or youth and homicidal precision?
Quote #8
These guys are converging from all sides, there's an incredible number of them, she just keeps holding that button down, pointed straight ahead, digging at the floor with her foot, building up speed. The Liquid Knuckles acts like a chemical flying wedge, she's skating out of there on a carpet of bodies. (41.67)
That's right: Y.T. beats down every Fed who tries to prevent her from leaving the building. The fact that a fifteen-year-old girl is equipped to take on an entire building of federal agents is kind of amazing. It demonstrates that what you lack in sheer physical strength or numbers can be made up with cunning and good gear.
Quote #9
"People like L. Bob Rife can't do anything without us hackers. And even if he could convert us, he wouldn't be able to use us, because what we do is creative in nature and can't be duplicated by people running me." (57.18)
According to this interpretation, skills that require creativity and other higher thinking functions make people (like hackers) harder to control, which is why Rife is targeting them with the Snow Crash binary brain-ruining virus. Probably no one who majored in computer science thought to themselves, "Gee, this is a skill that will make me a lot of money someday, but possibly also put me at risk of brain-death."