Green Mars (Mars Trilogy, #2)

by Kim Stanley Robinson

“And because we are alive, the universe must be said to be alive. We are its consciousness as well as our own. We rise out of the cosmos and we see its mesh of patterns, and it strikes us as beautiful. And that feeling is the most important thing in all the universe—its culmination, like the color of the flower at first bloom on a wet morning. It’s a holy feeling, and our task in this world is to do everything we can to foster it. And one way to do that is to spread life everywhere. To aid it into existence where it was not before, as here on Mars.”

Such extremes of exertion, fear, anxiety—now joy—giddily he understood that these were the moments that etched themselves on one’s mind forever, when one was struck by the shocking reality of reality, so seldom felt, now igniting in him like a fuse. And he could see the same stark glory lighting all his companions’ faces, wild animals glowing with spirit.

“But childhood isn’t just those years. It’s also the opinions you form about them afterward. That’s why our childhoods are so long.”