16 quotes
Second chances were so rare in this world to be almost miracles.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
You have to spell things out for the press—you can’t rely on them to know even the simplest things.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
Common sense has very little to do with physics.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
Everybody dies. So much of growing up consists of coming to grips with this fact.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
She was one of those people who discredited their own ideas by the force with which they argued them.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
It was classic cult behavior: the charismatic leader whose word was law, the unreasoning obedience, the pervasive fear.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
He’s just an ambitious young beta male with delusion of alphahood. He wants power and double rations, is all. This whole thing stinks of primate politics.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
The authority of superior knowledge was different in kind from the authority of assumed power. Still, he felt a little awkward assuming it.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
It was a terrible blessing she’d been given, to see herself the way everybody else did.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
But the way she saw it, you only had so much organization in your life. You had to choose: Invest it in your research, or fritter it away on housework.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
In some ways she was not a very good scientist: impatient with data, too ready to leap to conclusions, apt to judge an idea not by its merits but by its sheer niftiness.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
She had learned at an early age that it was not how often you were wrong that counted in science, but how often you were right. One startling hit covered a multitude of bad guesses.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
He was accustomed to questioning an essentially impassive universe. The physical world might be maddeningly close-lipped about its secrets, but it didn’t lie, and it never actively tried to deceive you.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
We did it the way we did it because according to the records, that’s the way we did it. The rules against paradox bind us as tightly as they do you.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
And she was off, leaping like a salmon from idea to idea. Hers was the kind of fast and playful intellect that enjoyed tossing a stone into the pond of received wisdom, just to see the frogs jump.
Bones of the Earth (2002)
It really is a pity. Esme was so full of curiosity and enthusiasm when she was a child. She’d make a great biologist. But it was her misfortune to be born wealthy. She had dreams. But her parents had too much money to allow that.
Bones of the Earth (2002)