Look at these humans! How could such glacial slowness even be called life? An age could pass, virtual empires rise and fall in the time they took to … - Iain Banks

If this goes badly and I make a crater, I want it named after me!

I think I know the real reason."
"Which is?"
"Alcohol in the dust clouds. Goddamn stuff is everywhere. Any lousy species ever invents the telescope and the spectroscope and starts looking in between the stars, what do they find?" He knocked the glass on the table. "Loads of stuff, but much of it alcohol." He drank from the glass. "Humanoids are the galaxy's way of trying to get rid of all that alcohol.

She took a deep breath. Suddenly, she felt quite entirely sober. “Is this as important as I think it is?”
“Almost certainly much more so.”
“Oh,” she said, “fuck.”