The problem was, although I was as certain as I could be that I was right, I could offer nothing to bolster my arguments. - Alastair Reynolds

And what keeps you going, exactly?" "Insulting my friends. Making new ones, to compensate for the ones I already insulted just a bit too much. You'd be surprised how much work those activities demand of me—it's practically a full-time occupation." "In fairness, you're getting very good at it.

His parents had abdicated responsibility to an illusion.

I had never understood mathematics with any great agility, but now I sensed it as a hard grid of truth underlying everything: bones shining through the thin flesh of the world.