Well, you know our saying: It's not over until you hold the book's ashes in your hands, weeping at the years you've lost. I did not know we had that … - Robin Sloan

They're just bacteria. They don't think or plan. They just...exist.'
'Just exist? They do things we only dream of. They are fecund and potent, they can speak to one another with chemicals and light, they can form teams — oh, the teams they can form. Millions strong, all working together perfectly. If we could cooperate like that — if we could even get close — we would have all of our problems solved.

Thank you, Teobaldo. You are my greatest friend. This has been the key to everything.

Imagination runs out. But it makes sense, right? We probably just imagine things based on what we already know, and we run out of analogies in the thirty-first century.