More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. –Albert Einstein
Their minds were aware for three seconds. They looked into each other’s eyes. Seeing the fear, the terror, the horror, the pain. There was no time for thought. No time for a last “I love you.” The universe did not care for romance. Not at all.
The Sibyl on Asphodel Station asked its three questions over and over again. Am I awake? Am I alive? Where is everyone? Never once in its term of existence had there been no voice to answer.
But without a body, how could the AI scream?
Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. –Bram Stoker
The blue oval of light was where a face should be, but there was nothing human behind the polymer. No eyes, only more coils of torn and burned wires. And yet as it lifted its head and looked at him, Soren could feel it seeing him, a sensation that was both impossible and—he knew—quite true.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. –Galileo Galilei
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries of life disappear and life stands explained. –Mark Twain
“This is you not giving a speech?” asked Trumbo. “Oh, the full version is a five-hour lecture with graphics,” he said smiling. “I went to business school. Much more fun. We had parties.”
Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones. –Thich Nhat Hanh
When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are ever filled with the fear of death, so when their time comes, they weep and wail and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different manner. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home. –Wabasha
It was all okay because Sibyl was herself again. It was safe because Sybil said it was.
“the eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” It was a kind of blindness brought on by too much stress, too much fear, and a towering dread of seeing something that made everything worse.
Not one of them paused to consider that the shadow was in the path of light falling from the overhead panels. Not a moment’s thought was given to the problem of a shadow being where no shadow could exist.
He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. –Friedrich Nietzsche
Light found its way through the shadows in her brain, but it did not hurry. Neither did clarity.
The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. –G. K. Chesterton
“And let’s bear in mind, children,” said Calisto, “we are listening to the ghost of an alien talk shit to a philosopher while they stand on the ruins of a world destroyed by monsters. I mean, for context and all.”
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer. –Ralph Waldo Emerson
Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill. –Robert Louis Stevenson
My girl, my girl, where will you go? I’m going where the cold wind blows (Where’s that, baby?) In the pines, in the pines Where the sun don’t ever shine I would shiver the whole night through. –Lead Belly
If she survives this, and if we make it home, he thought, they’ll name ships after her. They’ll teach her methods in flight school for a hundred years. Maybe forever. If. What a terrible word that was.
“This is hell,” yelled Lost, and it was the first time the golem had raised his voice in anger. Hell is empty and all the devils are here. The old quote echoed in Soren’s head, gaining new meaning and poignancy.
the NecroTeks saw the impact and the awful damage Bianca had inflicted upon the most dangerous ship in the shoggoth fleet. It filled them with a terrible shared grief, because all of them shared something none of the tumbler pilots in space or anyone on Asphodel could understand. They knew what it felt like to die.
It was as though the AI sought to win one part of a much greater battle, with no clear plan for an immediate victory.
Love was the secret that all warriors cherished. They did not fight for flags or parties or causes. No real warrior ever had. They fought for the person next to them. They fought for those at home who could not fight for themselves. They fought for the unborn who would never live if they lost. And they fought because the enemy wanted to take all that away, crush it, spoil it, use it, defile it. Exterminate it.
“We who have lived more years often fall prey to the belief that age necessarily grants wisdom. An associated sin is believing that the young have strength but lack wisdom or, worse, lack insight.”
