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The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4) QUOTES

The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4) QUOTES

1 " To see and feel one's beloved naked for the first time is one of life's pure, irreducible epiphanies. If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include that truth of contact or be forever hollow. To make love to the one true person who deserves that love is one of the few absolute rewards of being a human being, balancing all of the pain, loss, awkwardness, loneliness, idiocy, compromise, and clumsiness that go with the human condition. To make love to the right person makes up for a lot of mistakes. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

2 " I explained my opinion of the ship’s logic. “That is a strange designation,” said the ship. “While I have certain organic elements incorporated into my substructure and decentralized DNA computing components, I am not—in the strictest sense of the term—a biological organism. I have no digestive system. No need for elimination, other than the occasional waste gas and passenger effluvium. Therefore, I have no anus in either real or figurative terms. Therefore, I hardly believe I could qualify to be called an …” “Shut up,” I said. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

3 " No lifetime is long enough for those who wish to create, Raul. Or for those who simply wish to understand themselves and their lives. It is, perhaps, the curse of being human, but also a blessing. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

4 " [The Void Which Binds] actual but unaccessible presence in our universe is one of the prime causes for our species elaborating myth and religion, for our stubborn, blind belief in extrasensory powers, in telepathy and precognition, in demons and demigods and resurrection and reincarnation and ghosts and messiahs and so many other categories of almost-but-not-quite satisfying bullshit. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

5 " evolution is not progress, that there is no ‘goal’ or direction to evolution. Evolution is change. Evolution ‘succeeds’ if that change best adapts some leaf or branch of its tree of life to conditions of the universe. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

6 " Outside the port, the slashed rock of the unnamed asteroid tumbled and spun in dynamics known only to the gods of chaos mathematics. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

7 " That’s what writers and artists and creators do, boy. Listen to the Void and try to hear dead folks’ thoughts. Feel their pain. The pain of living folks too. Finding a muse is just an artist or holy man’s way of getting a foot in the Void Which Binds’ front door. Aenea knew that. You should have too. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

8 " I could not do this, I realized, if I were immortal. This degree of love of life and of one another is granted, I saw for once and for ever, not to immortals, but to those who live briefly and always under the shadow of death and loss. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

9 " At that moment I would have welcomed spider-rats nibbling on my toes about as much as the idea of chatting with a missionary priest. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

10 " The Hegemony had known how to treat cancer, but most of the gene-tailoring knowledge and technology had been lost after the Fall. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

11 " Pain is an interesting and off-putting thing. Few if any things in life concentrate our attention so completely and terribly, and few things are more boring to listen to or read about. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

12 " It has been my experience that immediately after certain traumatic separations—leaving one’s family to go to war, for instance, or upon the death of a family member, or after parting from one’s beloved with no assurances of reunion—there is a strange calmness, almost a sense of relief, as if the worst has happened and nothing else need be dreaded. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

13 " Choose again. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

14 " The problem with being passionately in love ... is that it deprives you of too much sleep. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

15 " Thus evolved some members of the Core—not altruists, but desperate survivalists who realized that the only way ultimately to win their never-ending zero-sum game was to stop the game. And to stop the game they needed to evolve into a species capable of empathy. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

16 " The young remember most deeply "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

17 " Children bring chaos and clutter and an infinite potential for the future "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

18 " Nothing had ever been so welcome by its absence. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

19 " We’ve been stuck in one species since our Cro-Magnon ancestors helped to wipe out the smarter Neanderthals,” she said. “Now it’s our chance to diversify rapidly, and institutions like the Hegemony, the Pax, and the Core are stopping it. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

20 " Aenea heard the music of the spheres. She resonated with the Void Which Binds, which resonates in turn to sentient life and thought, and then she used the almost illimitable energy of the Void to … to take the first step. "

― Dan Simmons , The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)