Alastair Reynolds

"Hallucination doesn’t preclude a rational response to that same hallucination."

"“Is he going to be okay?” Svetlana asked. “He was dead, Svieta,” Axford said patiently. “Anything else has to count as an improvement.”"

"“The question is: do you trust me?” “Sometimes.” Bella smiled. “That’s exactly the right attitude: trust your leaders, but be careful not to trust them too much.”"

"There are certain truths that, in themselves, are as dangerous as any advanced technology."

"The existence theorem says that it is always much easier to find a solution when you can be confident that one exists."

"“We’ve never lied to you,” McKinley said. “No,” Bella said, “but you’ve done a damned good job of not correcting any of my assumptions.”"

"Some promises are best broken. Trust me on this: I’m a politician."

"That was the universe: you could beat it once, you could float a message in a bottle across half of eternity, but the universe would always find a way to have the last laugh."

"“There’s still hope.” But a small, private voice said: there’s hope, and there’s desperation."

"I wish there was something we could do. But organised structure is the most precious thing in the universe. When it is lost, it is truly lost."

"“Then all this,” Chromis said, gesturing at the vista before them, “everything we’ve lived for and made, everything we’ve dreamed into existence—you firmly believe it won’t always be here?” “It’d be egocentric to think otherwise. Almost every sentient being who ever lived belonged to a society that doesn’t exist any more. Why should we be any different?” “But our deeds will remain.” “If we’re lucky. There’s every chance they won’t survive either.” “That’s so bleak, Rudd.” “Bracing, I prefer to think.” “But if nothing we do here has any guarantee of lasting, if even the best gestures have only a slim chance of outliving us—is there any reason not to just give up?” “Every reason in the world,” Rudd said. “We’re here and we’re alive. It’s a beautiful evening, on the last perfect day of summer.” He turned and nodded at the waiting cauls. “Now let’s go down there and make the most of it, while it lasts.”"

"They screwed with democracy. I’m not going to lose much sleep when democracy screws them back."

"“Nothing he said indicated that he was that angry. I mean, there’s a difference between angry and murderous. Isn’t there?” “Less than you’d think.”"

"One trusted machines. But one never expected machines to return the favor."

"“I’m hoping no one will be quite that stupid,” Sparver said. “Then again, this is baseline humans we’re dealing with.”"

"You are that rarest of creatures: a man with the wisdom to see beyond his own time."

"I’m just saying that right now we could all use a degree of perspective. Because this is not the end of the world."

"Everything looked utterly normal, exactly as Thalia had expected save for the absence of a rampaging mob."

"She’d walked a delicate line with commendable skill. But sometimes the best case wasn’t good enough."

"“I’m just saying...we can’t trust them. We’ve never been able to trust them. That’s always been a cornerstone of our operational policy.” “Then maybe it’s time we got a new cornerstone. They’re people, Lillian. They might be people who make us uncomfortable, people with very different values from ours, but when we’re facing local extinction at the hands of a genocidal machine intelligence, I don’t think the differences between us look massively significant, do you?”"

"I was born in a house with a million rooms, built on a small, airless world on the edge of an empire of light and commerce that the adults called the Golden Hour, for a reason I did not yet grasp."

"“Are you threatening me, shatterling” “No, just indulging in a little wishful thinking.”"

"No act of knowledge acquisition is entirely without risk."

"If my years as a shatterling had taught me anything, it was that not all questions had answers. Societies had reduced themselves to radioactive dust because they could not accept that single unpalatable truth."

"The problem was, although I was as certain as I could be that I was right, I could offer nothing to bolster my arguments."

"I had read in the story-cube that the speed of light was a universal limit; that in a thousand years of experimentation—despite any number of false dawns—no one had ever managed to circumvent it. This had made me feel hemmed in and claustrophobic—it was like being told I must never run or skip down the long, dreary corridors of the house, but must walk instead, with my neck straight and my hands held behind my back. I felt affronted, as if the speed of light was a personal assault on my liberty. Why should I not go as fast as I pleased? Why should I not skip and run? But I could no more explain why the speed limit existed than I could explain why two and two did not make five. It was simply the way things were, one of those rules—like the edict not to visit certain parts of the house—that were not to be questioned."

"“We’re flexible,” Campion said. “It’s the price we pay for being sentient.”"

"Civilisations beyond number had risen from obscurity, considering themselves masters of all creation, before fading back into the footnotes of history."

"“Wonderful, isn’t it?” “Wonderful and a little spooky.” “Like all the best things in the universe.”"

"“I’m hearing a lot of reasons why someone wouldn’t hold a grudge against us,” Campion said. Betony looked sympathetic. “Then you misunderstand human nature, my dear fellow. People will hate us simply for being what we are: a force for good, for benign non-interference. The mere fact that we haven’t dirtied our hands, that we’ve maintained an unblemished reputation—that’s enough to make someone detest us.”"

"People lived and died and did strange, pointless things to themselves. So did societies, be they city-sized states or galactic empires encompassing thousands of solar systems. Everything came and went, everything was new and bright with promise once and old and worn out later, and everything left a small, diminishing stain on eternity, a mark that time would eventually erase."

"Open your story-cube on the way home and ask it to tell you about causality violation. I did once, because I asked the same question you did. Why should I be limited? What right does the universe have to say what I can and can’t do? I’m intelligent. The universe is just a lot of hydrogen and dirt, going through the motions. But in this instance the universe has the final say."

"I felt a terrible sadness open inside me, a void through which the winds from the end of the universe were blowing."

"There had been a human soul in that skull only a few hours earlier, and now no authority in the universe could bring her back. We were like monkeys sitting around a fire that had just extinguished, wondering why the warmth and light had gone away."

"She was usually caught with her back to us, a distant figure standing on some cliff or high building with one hand on her hip and another shielding her eyes from the sun, lost in the rapture of scale and scenery, drunk on the very idea of being human, a monkey who had hit the big time."

"Sorry, Campion, but we can’t trust Lady Luck any more. Lately she’s taken to pissing on us from a great height."

"They’re your children. The more you try to force them to be like you, the more they’re going to flare off in different directions like wild fireworks, the more they’re going to surprise and disappoint you."

"Given the evidence at our disposal, only a fool would put any faith in the organic and the machine living harmoniously for the rest of time."

"Don’t you start. It’s bad enough that one of us feels he could have done more. We’re human, Campion—that’s all it boils down to. Human and not nearly as clever as we thought we were when it counted. End of story. When they put up the gravestone for our species, that’ll be the epitaph."

"We were sowing so much misinformation that some of it came back and bit us."

"Do you see us slavering for revenge, that most pointlessly biological of imperatives?"

"“I have only your word for that.” “Yes,” the glass man said, “that’s rather the point. There’s going to have to be a lot more trust from this time forward. Why don’t we start as we mean to go on?”"

"They might have their airships and machine guns, but superstition wasn’t something that went away just because you had engines and bullets."

"“And you do not think that this is possible?” “I’ll believe in anything when I see evidence for it.”"

"“I know what you’re feeling," Meroka said. “You’re thinking, this was my little adventure, it was all revolving around me. And now it’s not. You’re just a detail, swept up in the stuff she’s making happen. Welcome to the way most of us spend our lives feeling, Cutter. We’re just turds swirling our way down the pipe.”"

"“I had you down as a xenophobic zealot,” Quillen said. “I didn’t realize you were also a sadist.” “We all have our hidden depths.”"

"I’m not asking you to open your mind to all manner of nonsense, Doctor, merely to allow for the possibility of things you might previously have dismissed, or failed to give any consideration to whatsoever. Such as the fact that the world was not always this way, and by implication doesn’t have to be this way in the future."

"This was a watering hole, and watering holes drew the hungry as well as the parched."

"“I take it you’re not a believer, Meroka?” “Are you?” “I don’t believe.” He paused theatrically. “In anything. I question. I doubt. I doubt and I doubt consistently and systematically. It’s called thinking scientifically.” “I hope you understand what the fuck that means,” Meroka said, because I sure don’t.” “I wouldn’t expect you to, my dear. The world isn’t exactly conducive to scientific thinking. Not in its present condition. But it’s changing, and so must we. Those of us who can, anyway.”"

"“We don’t have enough evidence to decide either way,” Ricasso said, “so for now we may as well keep open minds.”"