Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7) QUOTES

64 " That’s the thing. The people you’re controlling don’t have a voice in how you control them. As long as everyone’s on the same page, things may be great, but when there’s a question, you win. Right?”

“There has to be a way to come to a final decision.”

“No, there doesn’t. Every time someone starts talking about final anythings in politics, that means the atrocities are warming up. Humanity has done amazing things by just muddling through, arguing and complaining and fighting and negotiating. It’s messy and undignified, but it’s when we’re at our best, because everyone gets to have a voice in it. Even if everyone else is trying to shout it down. Whenever there’s just one voice that matters, something terrible comes out of it.”

“And yet, I understand from Ms. Fisk that the Transport Union was condemning whole colonies that didn’t follow its rule.”

“Right?” Holden said. “And so I disobeyed that order and I quit working for them. I was all set to go retire in Sol system. Can you do that?”

“Can I do what?”

“If you are given an immoral order, can you resign and walk away? Because everything I’ve seen about how you’re running this place tells me that isn’t an option for you.”

Singh crossed his arms. He had the sense that the interrogation was getting away from him.

“The high consul is a very wise, very thoughtful man,” he said. “I have perfect faith that—”

“No. Stop. ‘Perfect faith’ really tells me everything I need to know,” Holden said. “You think this is a gentle, bloodless conquest, don’t you?”

“It is, to the degree that you allow it to be.”

“I was there for the war Duarte started to cover his tracks. I was there for the starving years afterward. Your empire’s hands look a lot cleaner when you get to dictate where history begins and what parts of it don’t count. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

65 " I am an officer of the Laconian Empire, Governor Singh. I believe what I’m told to believe. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

66 " There are always people who are wary of change. And that’s a good thing. Change should be watched, moderated, and questioned. But that conservative view shouldn’t rein in progress or put a damper on hope. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

67 " That was the trick of living under the thumb of a dictator. It broke every conversation, even the private ones. The invasion had wounded everyone, one way or another. Herself very much included. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

68 " Time was supposed to heal all wounds. To Drummer, that was just a nice way of saying that if she waited long enough, none of the things that seemed important to her would turn out to matter. Or at least not the way she’d thought they did. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

69 " I’m really wishing Titan were still on that list of options.”

“That’s waiting for yesterday, sweetheart. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

70 " Bobbie, when you were active Martian Marine Corps, did your Goliath suits have a command override?” “A what?” Bobbie said. “Command override. Something that let your commanding officer shut the suit down?” “Sure, we called it a radio. CO said stand down, and we did. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

71 " you could never overcome tribalism and jingoism with an argument. Tribalism was an irrational position, and it was impossible to defeat an irrational position with a rational argument "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

72 " Singh couldn’t sleep that night. He was exhausted, but whenever he closed his eyes, Holden was there, squinting through his injured eyes, pointing with his broken hand. And the enigma of the bullet, the threat and mystery it represented. They defied him to sleep. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

73 " Heart outside my body, you are. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

74 " And then … then everything gets harder. I get cranky. Start thinking about shit I don’t want to think about. You know. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

75 " Fuckers,” Avasarala said. “That’s why they took out the missile. Throw a changeup and let us think it was their fastball. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

76 " Punishment never works, "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

77 " But their first generation died with the work still unaccomplished. And the generation after that, and so on, child following parent, until the children only knew the tunnels and didn’t think they were so bad. They lost sight of the larger dream because it had never been their dream. Once the creators and their intentions were gone, only the tunnels were left. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

78 " There was a romance in the idea of setting out on a journey you’d never see the end of so that your grandchildren might live a better life. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

79 " Walk me through it,” she said. He gave her the basics—what Drummer had said, what he and Alex had talked about, what sense he’d made of it—and with every word, every phrase, he felt a confusion he hadn’t known he was suffering start to clear. Just saying it to her, knowing that even if he got the words or thoughts wrong, she would hear the meaning underneath them, let him find his own clarity. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)

80 " On the float, Clarissa's tears didn't fall. Surface tension held them to her until she shook her head, and then they'd form a dozen scattered balls of saline that in time would get sucked into the recycler and leave the air smelling a little more of sorrow and the sea. "

― James S.A. Corey , Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)