Perhaps our reservoir of spiritual faith has run out. Perhaps it should have run out a long time ago, I said sternly. Superstition has taken a terrib… - Dan Simmons

It struck me that his dialect was actually the nondialect of someone who has learned a new language perfectly but without the lazy shortcuts of someone born to it.

Entropy is a bitch, I said.
Now, now, said Aenea from where she was leaning on the terrace wall. Entropy can be our friend.
When? I said.
She turned around so that she was leaning back on her elbows. The building behind her was a dark rectangle, serving to highlight the glow of her sunburned skin. It wears down empires, she said. And does in despotisms.

Aenea smiled but her eyes still glistened. “Humans have been waiting for Jesus and Yahweh and E. T. to save their asses since before they covered those asses with bearskins and came out of the cave,” she said. “They’ll have to keep waiting. This is our business...our fight...and we have to take care of it ourselves.”