Evolution doesn’t greatly care about what happens to creatures once they’ve passed on their genetic heritage. - Alastair Reynolds

Khouri did not need to be told that Hades was a neutron star, any more than she needed to be told that there was no such thing as a safe close encounter with one. You either kept away or you died; those were the rules, and there was no force in the universe capable of negating them. Gravity ruled, and gravity did not take into account circumstances, or the unfairness of things, or listen to eleventh-hour petitions before reluctantly repealing its laws. Gravity crushed, and near the surface of a neutron star gravity crushed absolutely, until diamond flowed like water; until a mountain collapsed into a millionth of its height.

Is that as bad as it sounds?" Floyd asked. "No," Auger said. "It's worse. A lot worse.

Half of all the great art and literature in existence went unrecognised during the lifetimes of its creators.