James S. A. Corey Quotes

That kind of attention changes people, and it don’t make them better.

Say what you will about organized crime, at least it’s organized.

If we’re not willing to win the fight, I’m not sure what we’re doing in the cage.

When, Miller wondered, does someone stop being human? There had to be a moment, some decision that you made and before it, you were one person, and after it, someone else...If he’d seen it in someone else—Muss, Havelock, Sematimba—he wouldn’t have taken more than a minute to realize they’d gone off the rails. Since it was him, he had taken longer to notice. But Holden was right. Somewhere along the line, he’d lost himself.

The most effective lies, after all, convince the liar.

That says more about you than about the reality of things.

Thing is, we’re humans. We’re tribal. More settled things are, the bigger your tribe is. All the people in your gang, or all the people in your country. All the ones on your planet. Then the churn comes, and the tribe gets small again.

There’s a difference between tragedy and evil, and I am that difference.

“Reputation never has very much to do with reality,” she said. “I could name half a dozen paragons of virtue that are horrible, small-souled, evil people. And some of the best men I know, you’d walk out of the room if you heard their names. No one on the screen is who they are when you breathe their air.

Fashion never stopped. It was one of many things Naomi was pleased that age allowed her not to care about anymore.

Drummer had read somewhere that newsfeeds were where secular societies went to find out what cultural narratives were important and what could be ignored.

It was like a Chihuahua threatening an office building.

It was beautiful at this distance. The cities nothing but firefly twinkles on the dark side. Where the sun struck the Earth, almost nothing man had made was visible from the lunar orbit. The planet looked clean, unspoiled.
It was a pretty lie.
Seemed like a fact of the universe that the closer you got to anything, the worse it looked. Take the most beautiful person in the solar system, zoom in on them at the right magnification and they were an apocalyptic cratered landscape crawling with horrors. That’s what the Earth was. A shining jewel from space, up close a blasted landscape covered with mites living by devouring the dying.

If things got out of hand, it would mean six or seven million dead people and the end of everything Miller had ever known.
Odd that it should feel almost like relief.

All right," Bobbie said. "New orders. Don't die until I say so.