185 quotes
As military fuck-ups went it was a many-faceted gem, a work of genius, a grapeshot, multi-stage, cluster-warhead, fractal-munition regenerative-weapon-system of a fuck-up.
The Algebraist (2004)
“So it’s false.”
“What isn’t?”
“Intellectual achievement. The exercise of skill. Human feeling.”
The Player of Games (1988)
A good death. Well, he thought, given that you had to die, why want a bad one?
Matter (2008)
Here’s some thing we don’t know but we can maybe find out, and it’s something that other people don’t want us to know. How much more seductive can you get?
The Hydrogen Sonata (2013)
There came a point when if a conspiracy was that powerful and subtle it became pointless to worry about it.
Excession (1996)
“Chay, you must be quiet now, and prepare to meet your maker.”
“I had no maker. My maker was the universe, or my parents.”
Surface Detail (2010)
Madame d’Ortolan was, she liked to think, of elegant middle age, though to the casual observer this might imply that she expected to live to be about one hundred and twenty.
Transition (2009)
He wanted to be who he was, not the person he would become if he lost the one trait that distinguished him from everybody else, no matter how perverse that decision seemed to others.
Excession (1996)
“Oh. I didn’t realise.”
“Then you’re simply ignorant rather than malevolent. Congratulations.”
Look to Windward (2000)
I am not being obtuse.
You are being paranoid.
Excession (1996)
“Anyway, it was all terribly well organised. Done with military precision.” He barked a laugh. “Better than that, actually; didn’t miss and hit their own people.”
The Hydrogen Sonata (2013)
“Aah...Yes, and how does madam wish to pay?”
She slapped her credit card on the counter. “Eventually.”
Against a Dark Background (1993)
I am, as I have always been, of the opinion that while the niceties of normal moral constraints should be our guides, they must not be our masters.
Excession (1996)
“These people have successfully incorporated a belief in your martial prowess into their religion; how can you deny them?”
“Believe me, it would be easy.”
Use of Weapons (1990)
Don’t you think it’s hilarious when people think they’re being terribly clever? I know I do. Just as well some of us genuinely fucking are or we’d be in a hell of a fucking state.
Surface Detail (2010)
This version felt like the truth, she thought; close enough to the myths and legends of her own people, but less self-serving, less dramatically glorious, more equivocal in its moral implications.
Matter (2008)
“No, Geis, it doesn’t wear off. Like certain exotic diseases, and unlike love, synchroneurobonding is for life.”
Geis lowered his eyes. “You weren’t always so cynical about love.”
“As they say; ignorance pays.”
Against a Dark Background (1993)
It’s very nearly 1989 but it’s midnight in the Dark Ages just the thickness of a book away, the thickness of a skull away; just the turn of a page away.
The State of the Art (1991)
But are we within likelihood? Batra asked. Are we even still within the realm of anything other than paranoid lunacy?
Matter (2008)
There was some thing almost sublimely elegant, Sal thought, about how perfect a waste of time, people, resources and hard work the whole project had been.
The Algebraist (2004)