The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)

by Becky Chambers

Acting all sanctimonious while spouting bad info was a terrible way to win a debate, but a great way to piss people off.

It was hard to feel weird in a place where everybody was weird. He took comfort in that.

“Do you ever get tired of Humans?” “On occasion. I think that’s normal for anyone living with people other than their own. I’m sure they get tired of us, too.”

Humans had a long, storied history of forcing their way into places where they didn’t belong.

Such a quintessentially Human thing, to express sorrow through apology.

I did not start that war. It should never have been mine to fight.” He slunk down so that he could look Rosemary square in the eye. “We cannot blame ourselves for the wars our parents start. Sometimes the very best thing we can do is walk away.”

“But it still compares. If you have a fractured bone, and I’ve broken every bone in my body, does that make your fracture go away? Does it hurt you any less, knowing that I am in more pain?”

Feelings are relative. And at the root, they’re all the same, even if they grow from different experiences and exist on different scales.”

The truth is, Rosemary, that you are capable of anything. Good or bad. You always have been, and you always will be. Given the right push, you, too, could do horrible things. That darkness exists within all of us.

“All you can do, Rosemary — all any of us can do — is work to be something positive instead. That is a choice that every sapient must make every day of their life. The universe is what we make of it. It’s up to you to decide what part you will play.

“Most days I wake up and have no idea what the hell I’m doing.”

But every sapient species has a long, messy history of powers that rise and fall. The people we remember are the ones who decided how our maps should be drawn. Nobody remembers who built the roads.”