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141 " [Lack of ambition is for baseline humans.] "
― Alastair Reynolds , Redemption Ark (Revelation Space, #2)
142 " Believe me, this will help. When everything seems like it couldn’t get any worse, you’ll always be able to tell yourself: I did this one brilliant thing, this one brilliant thing that no one else has ever or will ever do. And that makes me special. "
― Alastair Reynolds , Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds
143 " I pushed my hand into the open slot of the maker and closed my fingers around the sculpted handle of the energy-pistol. The newly minted weapon had the peculiar heft of something crammed with intricate machinery at abnormal densities. "
― Alastair Reynolds , House of Suns
144 " She longed to touch it, to stroke her fingers through that atmosphere, cleaving white billowing clouds and glittering salty seas, until she felt the hard scabbed crust beneath them. "
― Alastair Reynolds , Blue Remembered Earth (Poseidon's Children, #1)
145 " She wanted to climb on to the rack herself to wrench one of the pilgrims away from the sight that transfixed them, to rip back the cowl from their helmet, to press her own face against that blank mirror and try to make contact--before it was too late--with whatever fading glimmer of human individuality remained. She wanted to drive a rock into the faceplate, shattering faith in an instant of annihilating decompression.And yet she knew that her anger was horribly misdirected. She knew that she only loathed and despised these pilgrims because of what what she feared had happened to Harbin. She could not smash the churches, so she desired instead to smash the gentle innocents who were drawn toward them "
― Alastair Reynolds , Absolution Gap (Revelation Space, #3)
146 " You've found a way to stay sane, Renfew--even if that means admitting a tiny piece of piano-playing madness into your world. But there's a cost to that sanity, and it isn't moi. the cost is you can't ever allow yourself an instant of hope, because hope is something that will always be crushed, crushed utterly, and in the crushing of hope you will be weakened forever, just as surely as if you'd mainlined some slow-acting poison."~"Understanding Space & Time "
― Alastair Reynolds , Zima Blue and Other Stories
147 " I am not cruel,” he said. “Not in the sense you mean. But cruelty is a useful tool if one can only recognise the precise moment when it must be used. "
148 " Making love was a game of echoes. We had shared memories so many times that when I made love to her, I knew exactly how it felt to be Purslane. I could taste and feel her other lovers and she could taste and feel mine, each experience reaching away like a reflection in a hall of mirrors, diminishing into a kind of carnal background radiation, a sea of sensuous experience. I had been a girl once, then a thousand men and women and all their lovers. The stasis field locked on. The Synchromesh took hold. I hurtled into my own future, while my ship ate space and time.- "House of Suns" by Alastair Reynolds "
149 " The stability of the Glitter Band depends on social cohesion, Mister Garlin. We don’t have standing armies, we don’t have a citizen militia. Even the local constabularies constitute a vanishingly small proportion of our population. But this system only functions in the absence of malicious fear-mongering. I have no time for those who disseminate lies and half-truths for their own ends. "
― Alastair Reynolds , Elysium Fire (Prefect Dreyfus Emergency, #2)
150 " The first query had been merely technical; a check to see that the communication beam was still online. Later, the weapon had become more urgent; adopting tones of polite insistence. Now it was getting far less diplomatic, throwing the machine equivalent of a tantrum. "
― Alastair Reynolds , Revelation Space (Revelation Space, #1)
151 " The place is of no concern to them. They've left it to fester. An informational dead zone. The abstraction doesn't penetrate here, by design. The dome rebuffs it. The family craved their privacy, their insularity. My alert was a simple radio frequency trigger, with just enough power to reach beyond the estate. A risk even in that, but one worth taking.""You keep saying them," Dreyfus said."For a reason," Stasov answered. "
152 " Madness, yes . . . but heartfelt madness. "
153 " To Sky, Clown had become something to be understood; something to be dissected and parameterised. Clown, he now recognised, was something like the bubble-drawing the dolphin had made in the water: a projection carved from light rather than sound. "
― Alastair Reynolds , Chasm City
154 " This one could turn her back on her own dying father, or watch a blinded man whimper in pain and not give one cold cuss. "
― Alastair Reynolds , Revenger (Revenger #1)
155 " Such was the nature of obsessions: no quarter given for the human cost. "
― Alastair Reynolds , On the Steel Breeze (Poseidon's Children, #2)
156 " An idea so dangerous it can’t be discussed. I thought we buried all that nonsense back in the Dark Ages. "
157 " There was no call for that,” Father said. “I’ve never been so—” “Humiliated?” Adrana finished for him. “You know what the real humiliation is? Being a Ness, that’s what. Grovelling our way up the Mazarile social ladder, trying to pretend we’re something we’re not. "
158 " No,” Father said, wiping a hand across a sweat-glistened brow. “They were using both entrances, and you can bet your sister’s headed for one of them.” Paladin was still sweeping the room, its dome spinning around, lights flashing agitatedly behind the glass. “All right,” I said. “You go back to the cloakroom, where we came in. I’ll go to the south entrance.” “Can I trust you to come back?” Father asked. “Of course. "
159 " Niagara made a careful gesture, like some religious benediction: a diagonal slice across his chest and a stab to the heart. ‘A slash and a dot,’ he said. ‘I doubt it means anything to you, but this was once the mark of an alliance of progressive thinkers linked together by one of the very first computer networks. The Federation of Polities can trace its existence right back to that fragile collective, in the early decades of the Void Century. It’s less a stigma than a mark of community. "
― Alastair Reynolds , Century Rain
160 " I haven’t needed anything big enough from you to justify being pleasant, and I doubt I ever will. "