Alastair Reynolds Quotes

Khouri did not need to be told that Hades was a neutron star, any more than she needed to be told that there was no such thing as a safe close encounter with one. You either kept away or you died; those were the rules, and there was no force in the universe capable of negating them. Gravity ruled, and gravity did not take into account circumstances, or the unfairness of things, or listen to eleventh-hour petitions before reluctantly repealing its laws. Gravity crushed, and near the surface of a neutron star gravity crushed absolutely, until diamond flowed like water; until a mountain collapsed into a millionth of its height.

I gather you were all too busy killing each other." "That's a fairly reductive summary of our history, but I don't suppose it's too far from the truth.

It was the wrong approach. But it was the only way we—they—could see at the time. So we mustn’t mock them for their mistakes. In two hundred years, someone will be just as quick to mock us for ours, if we’re not careful.

Charm was what he excelled at. If anyone sensed his underlying shallowness, they usually mistook it for well-hidden great depth of character, like misinterpreting a radar bounce.

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.

Tanner, are you insane?" "Very probably several kinds of insane," I said. "But I'm afraid it doesn't change anything. I'm perfectly happy with my current delusional system.

Truth is truth, no matter who else believes it.

It was astonishing how quickly friendship could turn to enmity, she thought, like a compass needle swinging from one pole to the other.
They’d been excellent friends. They’d make excellent enemies as well.

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

Still don't trust us?" "First rule of complex systems," I said. "You can't tell friends from enemies.

I thought debate was supposed to be healthy," she countered. "It is," Auger replied, "so long as you don't disagree with me.

Rashmika could tell when anyone around her was lying. But seeing through her own deceptions was another matter entirely.

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

Maybe if you weren’t busy throwing rocks at each other, you could spend a little time on the other niceties of life, such as cooperation and mutual advancement.

“That would require an unprecedented leap of faith.”
“I don’t do faith,” Scorpio said.