James S.A. Corey

“First off, get your shit together. Panic doesn’t help. It never helps. Deep breaths, figure this out, make the right moves. Fear is the mind-killer. Ha. Geek.”

“I don’t believe war ever does. It’s a madness that’s in our nature. Sometimes it recurs; sometimes it subsides.” “Sounds like a disease.” “The herpes simplex of the species?”

“Holden had once dated a Buddhist who said that death was merely a different state of being, and people only feared the unknown that lay behind that transition. Death without warning was preferable, as it removed all fear.He felt he now had the counterargument.”

“There's a right thing to do," Holden said."You don't have a right thing, friend," Miller said. "You've got a whole plateful of maybe a little less wrong.”

“I know it's none of my business, but I really wouldn't let her put you off. So you don't understand sex and love and women. Just means you were born with a cock. And this girl? Naomi? She seems like she's worth putting a little effort into it. You know?""Yeah," Holden said. Then: "Can we never talk about that again?""Sure.”

“Too many dots," Miller said. "Not enough lines.”

“The abyss above him shone with unflickering stars. One of the dots of light was Earth. He didn’t know which one.”

“Stars are better off without us.”

“He’d seen unequivocally that the chaos he’d dedicated his life to holding at bay was stronger and wider and more powerful than he would ever be. No compromise he could make would be enough. His death-self was unfolding in him, and the dark blooming took no effort. It was a relief, a relaxation, a long, slow exhale after decades of holding it in.He was in ruins, but it was okay, because he was dying.”

“A world no longer of haves and have-nots, but of the engaged and the apathetic.”

“GOODY. MY SPLEEN IS COLLAPSING. HURRY UP.”

“A hundred and fifty years before, when the parochial disagreements between Earth and Mars had been on the verge of war, the Belt had been a far horizon of tremendous mineral wealth beyond viable economic reach, and the outer planets had been beyond even the most unrealistic corporate dream. Then Solomon Epstein had built his little modified fusion drive, popped it on the back of his three-man yacht, and turned it on. With a good scope, you could still see his ship going at a marginal percentage of the speed of light, heading out into the big empty. The best, longest funeral in the history of mankind. Fortunately, he’d left the plans on his home computer. The Epstein Drive hadn’t given humanity the stars, but it had delivered the planets.”