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

by Becky Chambers

In many ways, the idea of a shared stock of genes drifting through the galaxy is far easier to accept than the daunting notion that none of us may ever have the intellectual capacity to understand how life truly works.

Tweaking your body, it’s all about trying to make your physical self fit with who you are inside. Not that you have to tweak to get that feeling. Like me, I like to decorate myself, but my body already fits with who I am. But some modders, they’ll keep changing themselves their entire lives. And it doesn’t always work out.

Dr. Chef knew exactly where all of his feelings were, every joy, every ache. He didn’t need to visit them all at once to know they were there.

He was not a prisoner of those memories. He was their warden.

I wanted to heal them. Actually heal them. Sometimes I’d see a body added to the pile, someone I had just put back on her feet a few days earlier. It made me wonder what the point of it all was.”

“We cannot blame ourselves for the wars our parents start. Sometimes the very best thing we can do is walk away.”

People can do terrible things when they feel safe and powerful.

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?” “No, but that’s not—” “Yes, it is. 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 universe is what we make of it. It’s up to you to decide what part you will play.

Elders don’t shift around as much. They’re more stable. And most important, they’ve got life experience. They’re wise. They know things.” She smirked. “I’ll never understand how the rest of you expect brand-new adults to be able to teach kids how to be people.”

She looked anxious to see her family, and these kids weren’t it. Not even the one that had her cheekbones.

they ignore all their friends because they’re too busy staring, and they get jealous, and they have fights over dumb shit like who did the dishes last or why they can’t fold their fucking socks, and maybe the sex gets bad, or maybe they stop finding each other interesting, and then somebody bangs someone else, and everyone cries, and they see each other years later, and that person you once shared everything with is a total stranger you don’t even want to be around because it’s awkward.