James S. A. Corey Quotes

Avasarala stretched her right leg, feeling the ache in it. It would be worse in the morning. Lifting weights was an argument against a benign God. As if that needed more evidence.

History itself was a massive n=1 study, irreproducible. It was what made it so difficult to learn from.

How many millions of times had people had this exact conversation before? How many wars had put two people together for a moment and then washed them apart? There had to be a tradition of it. A secret history of vulnerability and want and all the things that sex promised and only occasionally delivered. They were just one more couple among all the countless others. It only hurt this time because it was them.

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

A decent idea now is way better than a brilliant plan when it’s too late.

Sex was one of those things where the way it was supposed to work and the way it worked for him didn’t always match up real well. He knew all the stuff about love and affection, and that just seemed like making shit up. He understood making shit up. He also understood how people talked about it, and he could talk about it that way just to fit in.

All of them do what they think is right, and tell themselves that they’re moral people with the strength to do the necessary things, however terrible they seem at the time. Every atrocity that has been done to us had someone behind it who thought what they did was justified. And here I am. A moral person with the strength to do this. Because it’s justified.

“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.

History, Michio believed, was a long series of surprises that seemed inevitable in retrospect.

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.

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

She felt like her soul was a handful of dice that were still rolling, and what came up would decide the shape that the rest of her life took.

Hell no," Jim said when they were alone in the suite. "Absolutely no. No fucking way, no. There have got to be a billion different ways to say no, and I'd still have to cycle through them a couple times to really express the depth of no on this one. Clarissa Mao? On the Roci? How is that anything but a massive load of let's-not-do-that?

Sometimes when we make these distinctions, we’re really creating them more than describing anything that’s already there.

He wasn’t a man who reined in his curiosity well.