But then, as she knew too well, the more fondly we imagine something will last forever, the more ephemeral it often proves to be. - Iain Banks

There is an old Sysan saying that the soup of life is salty enough without adding tears to it.

there came a point when if a conspiracy was that powerful and subtle it became pointless to worry about it.

We created something a little closer to perfection than ourselves; maybe that’s the only way to progress. Let them try to do the same. I doubt they can, so they will always be less as well as more than us. It’s all just a sum, a whispered piece of figuring lost in the empty blizzards of white noise howling through the universe, a brief oasis in an infinite desert, a freak bit of working out in which we have transcended ourselves, and they are only the remainder.