I take it you're not a believer, Meroka?" "Are you?" "I don't believe." He paused theatrically. "In anything. I question. I doubt. I doubt and I doub… - Alastair Reynolds

They dug too far into physics and it bit them. Physics will do that. It's an ungrateful piece of shit. It's a fickle lover that will always betray you. It courts you, gives you rewards, coughs up little treats like fire and the wheel, telescopes and the secret of starflight, makes you think you're worth it, that you're the special one, that you really, really matter to it.…All the while it's saving up this nasty little truth: that every thought, every deed, every hope you've ever held is futile. That the universe will end, and forget itself. That there is no such thing as meaning.… "Do you believe it?" Goma asked. "Of course I believe it. Physics doesn't give a damn about how we feel. It doesn't give a damn about a sleeping soundly in our beds, thinking we matter.

Still don't trust us?" "First rule of complex systems," I said. "You can't tell friends from enemies.

There had been a human soul in that skull only a few hours earlier, and now no authority in the universe could bring her back. We were like monkeys sitting around a fire that had just extinguished, wondering why the warmth and light had gone away.