James S. A. Corey Quotes

Her heart was pounding. Her muscles ached. She’d just killed two of the enemy. There would always be a little something—that tug on her humanity that came from doing violence. There was a satisfaction too. It didn’t mean she was a good woman or a bad one. It meant she was a Marine.

Things changed, and they didn’t change back. But sometimes they got better.

There was life out there. They had proof of it now. And the proof came in the shape of a weapon, so what did that tell him?

Owning your own racing ship wasn’t even wealth. It was like speciation. It was conspicuous consumption befitting ancient Earth royalty, a pharaoh’s pyramid with a reaction drive.

No one can blather on like a holy man with a trapped audience. Well, maybe a politician.

He found himself crafting the role of Governor Rittenaur as if he were acting a part in a play. He had come to notice when his own impulses were different from what Governor Rittenaur’s would be, and then bury his own judgment to give space to the requirement of his office. He was a professional impersonator of himself.

Just once I’d like to be rewarded for my optimistic view of humanity.

“Me? You don’t want to judge anything by me. I don’t even trust God.”
“You are absolutely the worst mystic ever,” Pa said, but she said it laughing.

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

The several unexamined assumptions in the argument remained unexamined.

Humanity was so flawed. Not just her, but everyone. Half the population was below average intelligence. Half below average dedication. Average adherence to duty. The cruel law of statistics. It was astounding that as a race they’d managed as much as they had.

Collaboration with the dead left questions that could never be answered.

It was, to say the least, a very high cost and very low probability of success. Singh assumed there was a faith element to the risk that he was just missing. In his opinion, faith was generally for people who were bad at math.

Jim’s sigh was soft, gentle. It would have been less devastating if she hadn’t heard the despair under it. “Detective Miller once told me, ‘We don’t have a right thing, just a plateful of a little less wrong.’”
“Yeah, but he was an asshole.”

Bobbie felt the pressure of time slipping away like she was watching a door close, with her on the wrong side of it.