Ghosts are not the souls of the dead, but the souls of people written out of history when history changes. - Alastair Reynolds

They’re your children. The more you try to force them to be like you, the more they’re going to flare off in different directions like wild fireworks, the more they’re going to surprise and disappoint you.

Are you sharpness personified?" Khouri poured herself a few final sips of coffee and then left the rest of it on the stove for when she got back. Coffee was her only vice, one acquired in her soldiering days on the Edge. The trick was to reach a knife-edge of alertness, but not be so buzzing that she could not point the weapon without shaking. "I think I've reduced the amount of blood in my caffeine system to an acceptable level, if that's what you mean.

“That would require an unprecedented leap of faith.”
“I don’t do faith,” Scorpio said.