Alastair Reynolds

“Well," she said, "I see it hasn't got a fuck of a lot better since I was away.”

“You didn't weld it shut or anything like that?""Yes, stupid me, I forgot.”

“It's an ancient technique known as lying, Khouri.”

“I don't know." That was typical Sajaki; like all the genuinely clever people Sylveste had met he knew better than to feign understanding where none existed.”

“Believe me, when you're dealing with infectious alien mind parasites, I always find primitive is best." Then, calmly, almost as if it were a recognised form of verbal punctuation, she took aim with the needler and gutted a rat which had dared to stray into the corridor.”

“...the next time you need a piece of apparently obscure information, try asking a science fiction writer. You might be surprised.”

“There has been much debate on the matter, but the present state of understanding is that no useful information can ever emerge from a black hole."~"Understanding Space & Time”

“I'll die? I'm going to die anyway, so what difference does it make?"She paused, allowing the melancholic chorus of the machines to swell and fill the room. "Probably by the end of the week. And all I've got to look forward to is the inside of this room or the view out this window. At least let me see something different." ~"Understanding Space & Time”

“Life is precious. Infinitely so. Perhaps it takes a machine intelligence to appreciate that."~"Understanding Space & Time”

“You've found a way to stay sane, Renfew--even if that means admitting a tiny piece of piano-playing madness into your world. But there's a cost to that sanity, and it isn't moi. the cost is you can't ever allow yourself an instant of hope, because hope is something that will always be crushed, crushed utterly, and in the crushing of hope you will be weakened forever, just as surely as if you'd mainlined some slow-acting poison."~"Understanding Space & Time”

“Do you have to sound so damned indifferent to it all? Here we are talking about how we're likely to be dead in a few hours and you're acting like it's only a minor inconvenience. ~"Spirey & the Queen”

“It’s the people who don’t worry—those who never have any doubts that what they’re doing is good and right—they’re the ones that cause the problems.”

“I think the deeper we go, the less likelihood we'll have of being recognised as something unwanted. It's like the human body - the greatest density of pain receptors lies in the skin.”

“Nightside, cities glistened in chains, and a spray of tinkertoy habitats girdled the planet. Gossamer starbridges reached from the equator towards orbit.”

“How did you . . . pass the time?’ Sunday asked. ‘You couldn’t just ching out of it, could you?’‘We had a different form of chinging,’ Eunice said. ‘An earlier type of virtual-reality technology, much more robust and completely unaffected by time lag. You may have heard of it. We called it “reading”.”

“History is what we write, not what we remember. Why should we tarnish the memory of our planet by enshrining our less then noble deeds?”

“At one time, the treatment for a certain kind of psychosis had been to push an ice pick up through the orbit of the eye, into the frontal lobe; the ice pick was then stirred around until it reduced the problematic brain tissue to non-functioning porridge.”

“I think I've reduced the amount of blood in my caffeine system to an acceptable level.”

“Cyphel knew exactly how he felt about her as well — it was there in her expression whenever they spoke that beguiling combination of amusement and haughtiness that she carried off so well. It was a look that expressed disdain at Campion’s guarded advances but also a kind of measured probationary respect as well. It was a look that said You dare to think that I will find you as interesting as you obviously find me Well perhaps in that very act of daring you become interesting to me if only fleetingly.”

“You worry that we're becoming monsters. Merlin, we already were monsters. You didn't make us any worse.”

“I've seen marvelous things, Sunday. I've looked back from the edge of the system and seen this planet, this Earth, reduced to a tiny dot of pale blue. I know what that feels like. To think that dot is where we came from, where we evolved out of the chaos and the dirt. And I know what it feels like to imagine going further. To hold that incredible, dangerous thought in my mind, if only for an instant. To think: what if I don't go home? What if I just keep traveling? Watching that pale-blue dot fall ever further away, until the darkness swallowed it and there was no turning back. Until Earth was just a blue memory.”

“As the old saying went, the Manhattan Project wasn't built in a day. Or was that Rome? Something to do with Earth, anyway.”

“Partnerka Clavaina została chirurgicznie zmodyfikowana w ten sposób, że mogła przyjąć w macicy żywy mózg po operacji będącej prostym odwróceniem cesarskiego cięcia - zabieg wykonywał Clavain. Ciało mężczyzny zostawili na miejscu, by znaleźli je strażnicy. Następnie Hybrydowcy sklonowali dla tego człowieka nowe ciało i wpakowali do środka ciężko doświadczony mózg.”

“It looked like a biology lesson for gods, or a snapshot of the kind of pornography which might be enjoyed by sentient planets.”

“Enjoy it, kid. Enjoy feeling that you can make a difference.' Floyd flashed him a smile. 'It won't last for ever.”

“Dimly--at first wary that it was merely a dislodged fragment of the dream--she remembered Resurgam. And then, slowly, events returned, not as a tidal wave, or even as as landslide, but as a slow, squelching slippage: a disembowelment of the past.”

“My people are impressing on Tulwar's people the wisdom of surrender and a rapid shift of allegiance. I'm counting on most them being opportunist thugs who'll recognize a good thing when it's offered to them.”

“The two men -- Fray and Malkin -- were standing near each other. They were not unarmed. They were quite seriously not unarmed. Both men were carrying -- or at least aiming -- what could only be categorised as small artillery pieces: two bulky gas-powered spinguns, so heavy that they had to be strapped to their bodies via thick leather girdles. Malkin was aiming at the angels, more or less.”

“There's a vorg loose," Meroka explained. "In case that escaped your attention. Ricasso's doing his bit for Swarm, trying to kill the thing before it sucks someone's brains out. Now he might be able to find time in his schedule to file that paperwork you need, but I'm guessing it's going to be a stretch, what with a monster on the loose and the ship being in a state of fucking emergency and all." She smiled sweetly. "So, what's it going to be? You going to let them out, or do I have to get, you know, truculent.”

“A city's only ever three hot meals away from anarchy.”