Such hopes now seemed ludicrous in their naivety, like trying to stop a bulldozer with a feather. - Alastair Reynolds

Goma shook her head. “No. We don’t speak of souls. Not now, not ever. Souls aren’t real.”
“Patterns, then. Abstract structures of experience and reaction, making up a consistent, continuous human identity.”

Now you're scaring me." "If you were not scared, you don't understand the situation.

She worked quickly, but not because she considered the commission beneath her. It was simply the way she always approached her art. Preparation, forethought, hours of meditation, then an explosion of swift and decisive action, like the quick and merciful descent of a sword. Execution, in every sense of the word.