You’ll have to excuse our customs and immigration staff: they preach courtesy and respect while demonstrating exactly the opposite. - Alastair Reynolds

That doesn't make the slightest bit of sense." "Welcome to politics.

I worry that it's me they're really after." "You don't exist. At the risk of wounding your ego, not everyone in the known universe is obsessed with you and your secret history.

People lived and died and did strange, pointless things to themselves. So did societies, be they city-sized states or galactic empires encompassing thousands of solar systems. Everything came and went, everything was new and bright with promise once and old and worn out later, and everything left a small, diminishing stain on eternity, a mark that time would eventually erase.