Everything looked utterly normal, exactly as Thalia had expected save for the absence of a rampaging mob. - Alastair Reynolds

He had never lost that mingled combination of awe and terror that welled up in him when confronted by the routinely huge distances of space.

No act of knowledge acquisition is entirely without risk.

So you've no qualms." "Qualms?" Merlin set down the papers he had been leafing through. "I've so many qualms they're in danger of self-organizing. I occasionally have a thought that isn't a qualm. But I'll tell you this. Sometimes you just have to do the obvious thing. They have an item I need, and there's a favor I can do for them. It's that simple. Not everything in the universe is a riddle.