The universe always feels old, though. That’s a universal truth, a universal fact of life. It felt old for her, already cobwebbed by history. Hard fo… - Alastair Reynolds

I had you down as a xenophobic zealot," Quillen said. "I didn't realize you were also a sadist." "We all have our hidden depths.

Then all this," Chromis said, gesturing at the vista before them, "everything we've lived for and made, everything we've dreamed into existence—you firmly believe it won't always be here?" "It'd be egocentric to think otherwise. Almost every sentient being who ever lived belonged to a society that doesn't exist any more. Why should we be any different?" "But our deeds will remain." "If we're lucky. There's every chance they won't survive either." "That's so bleak, Rudd." "Bracing, I prefer to think." "But if nothing we do here has any guarantee of lasting, if even the best gestures have only a slim chance of outliving us—is there any reason not to just give up?" "Every reason in the world," Rudd said. "We're here and we're alive. It's a beautiful evening, on the last perfect day of summer." He turned and nodded at the waiting cauls. "Now let's go down there and make the most of it, while it lasts.

Something that bad, it makes the headlines. They were idiots to bet against physics.