Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #3)

by Dan Simmons

I was not surprised to wake up alive. I suppose one is surprised only when one awakens dead.

“In the wide sea there lives a forlorn wretch, Doomed with enfeebled carcass to outstretch His loathed existence through ten centuries, And then to die alone. Who can devise A total opposition? No one. So A million times ocean must ebb and flow, And he oppressed. Yet he shall not die, These things accomplished. If he utterly Scans all depths of magic, and expounds The meanings of all motions, shapes and sounds; If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die. Moreover, and in chief, He must pursue this task of joy and grief Most piously—all lovers tempest-tossed, And in the savage overwhelming lost, He shall deposit side by side, until Time’s creeping shall the dreary space fulfil: Which done, and all these labours ripened, A youth, by heavenly power loved and led, Shall stand before him, whom he shall direct How to consummate all. The youth elect Must do the thing, or both will be destroyed.”

So many important things pass quickly without being understood at the time. So many powerful moments are buried beneath the absurd.

bluster, braggadocio, and the sweat-scented ointment of city-nervous men in the throes of adventure-bound male bonding—had long since grown tiresome to me.

The universe is indifferent to our fates. This was the crushing burden that the character took with him as he struggled through the surf toward survival or extinction. The universe just does not give a shit.

the shortest route to courage is absolute ignorance.

Life is brutal that way … the loss of irrecoverable moments amid trivia and distraction.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.