“There’s still hope.” But a small, private voice said: there’s hope, and there’s desperation. - Alastair Reynolds

I will say this, though—it's a very odd thing not to be conscious. To be—to all intents and purposes—dead. Neither gathering nor generating information, as cold and changeless as eternity. How do you humans live with the thought of that hanging over every moment of your pitifully short existences?" "We don't," Kanu said. "We just get on with it.

If I’ve learned one thing in my long existence, it’s that hesitation gets you nowhere.

But sanity, Vasko decided, was like the pattern of lights he could see through his cabin window. In almost any direction the only way to travel was into darkness, and there was a lot more darkness than light.