They might have their airships and machine guns, but superstition wasn’t something that went away just because you had engines and bullets. - Alastair Reynolds

Kanu closed his eyes, opened them again, hoping that the world would have done the decent thing and changed into a less problematic version of itself.

History's a stopped clock," Eunice said. "It's nice to look at, but there's only so much you can tell you.

But you seem so nonchalant about it all," Teal said.
Merlin pondered this for a few seconds. "Do you think being not nonchalant would make any difference? I don't know that it would. We're here in the moment, aren't we? And the moment will have its way with us, no matter how we feel about things."
"Fatalist."
"Cheerful realist. There's a distinction.