Michael Swanwick

"The authority of superior knowledge was different in kind from the authority of assumed power. Still, he felt a little awkward assuming it."

"“The problem was that when all you’re trying to do is survive, the universe seems a cold and hostile place. We needed a purpose. To distract us from our awareness of being a single spark of human warmth in an infinite expanse of silence. One small candle in the infinite night of being.” “Do you really think science is purpose enough?” “Yes, I do. I always have. Maybe it’s because I was a lonely kid, and there were times that learning things was all that kept me going. The search for truth is not an unworthy reason to keep going.” “You make it sound so arbitrary.” “Maybe it is. Yet I persist in believing that knowledge is better than ignorance.”"

"“Okay, so we broke the rules. That’s good! There are no more rules—they’re broken. Anything is possible now. We’ll find a solution. There has to be a solution. There always is.” “Not in my experience.” They were, he realized, standing on opposite sides of the great divide that separates those who deal with scientific fact and those who deal with the consequences of human actions. Which is to say, those who believe in a rational universe and those who know that, given the existence of human beings, there is no such thing. “You and I belong to entirely different universes, did you know that?”"

"“A man thinks with his dick,” Jimmy said, embarrassed. “That’s why his friends have to look out for him.”"

"“It’s inspired lunacy,” Leyster agreed. Chuck looked crestfallen. “Right up there with continental drift, or the notion that birds might be descended from dinosaurs.” Chuck brightened. “But it’s also right up there with Eric Van Danniken and Lamarckian genetics. Until we’ve tested it out, it’s just a nifty hypothesis, no more.”"

"She was one of those people who discredited their own ideas by the force with which they argued them."

"“Your system works fine in theory. But things are different in the real world.” ”I’m going to move to Theory some day,” Chuck said. “Everything works there.”"

"“That’s impossible.” “Only to small minds,” Gertrude said."

"It was a terrible blessing she’d been given, to see herself the way everybody else did."

"He’s just an ambitious young beta male with delusion of alphahood. He wants power and double rations, is all. This whole thing stinks of primate politics."

"It was classic cult behavior: the charismatic leader whose word was law, the unreasoning obedience, the pervasive fear."

"In some ways she was not a very good scientist: impatient with data, too ready to leap to conclusions, apt to judge an idea not by its merits but by its sheer niftiness."

"Second chances were so rare in this world to be almost miracles."

"Still...the greatest adventure of her life was over and done for. She had returned from Never-Never Land, from Middle-earth, from El Dorado. The dragons were slain, the treasures dug up and hauled away in wagons, the swords and bright banners packed in trunks and stowed in the attic. Nothing she ever did would be as vivid and meaningful again."

"She had gone rafting down the Eden. She had faced down the largest animals ever to walk the Earth. She had tended to a dying woman in her final days and nursed an ailing man back to health. She had known tears and laughter, toil, love, sweat, and danger. These were the primal satisfactions, the things that made life matter. What did Washington, D.C., in the twenty-first century have to offer that could compare with them?"