The Long Utopia (The Long Earth #4)

by Terry Pratchett

‘Sometimes I feel incomplete. As if I am losing memories, and then losing the memory of the loss itself

but it was hard for Sally to be supportive as opposed to judgemental.

Fortune, he thought, follows the already fortunate.

The Chartists were agitators for political reform, following the lead of proponents in the House of Commons itself. Luis learned they had had some successes, with parliamentary Acts to limit the use of children in the factories, for instance.

Luis Ramon Valienté, alone since boyhood, concerned for only the integrity of his own skin, didn’t see himself as part of a wider society at all. And besides, the disturbances had barely touched his own life. He could sympathize in the abstract with the plight of a child worked to a premature grave, but it was nothing to do with him.

“I conceive it to be the duty of every educated person closely to watch and study the time in which he lives, and, as far as he is able—”’ A grumpy Russell finished for him, ‘“To add his humble mite of individual exercise to further the accomplishment of what he believes Providence to have ordained.”’

The Poulson house was the same, she thought. It was a flaw, something wrong, something unwelcome, that didn’t belong in this world.

I am not willing to discard all that.’

‘Anyhow the government, as expressed through the rather discreet agency for which I work, has come to the decision that for the likes of you, rare isn’t enough: extinct would be preferable. We’re considering how to persuade friendly governments to come over to that way of thinking, and be done with you once and for all. Certainly once Britain is cleansed we’ll be going out into the col-onies with a similar programme.’

Now Rocky felt as if he had fallen through some flaw in the world.

if two objects have a quantum description sufficiently precise, if their states are identical, they are the same object.

I’m trying to describe my deepest existential crisis. Perhaps we could discuss Star Trek some other time.’

This jacket I’m wearing, as you’ll see, does feature arguably the single most useful invention human beings ever came up with: pockets.

There’ll be the old sort, Radcliffe and his crew, Homo sapiens sedentarius. And then among ’em will arise the new sort, us – Homo sapiens transversus.

Be humble in the face of the universe.

Do the good that’s in front of you. If somebody’s hurting, or about to be hurt, try to save them. Figure out who’s vulnerable, in any situation. Who’s got no power, no choice? It’s a good bet that you won’t go wrong if you help them.

‘You’re not going to get it right every time. It’s impossible to get it right every time. We live in a chaotic universe, remember? Be humble. But I figure it’s worth trying to get it more right than wrong .

To master the passions, for example – not to eliminate them, but to ensure they don’t control you.

We should embrace diversity, for example, for we can never know the consequences of our interventions in a maximally complex system like a biosphere.’

He’s trying to build a bridge between Next and humanity, clearly. But his teaching could be profoundly destabilizing.’

‘Then stop picking the scab,’