Clearly we missed something." "You have a fine talent for understatement. - Alastair Reynolds

I’m not asking you to open your mind to all manner of nonsense, Doctor, merely to allow for the possibility of things you might previously have dismissed, or failed to give any consideration to whatsoever. Such as the fact that the world was not always this way, and by implication doesn’t have to be this way in the future.

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.

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.