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

by Becky Chambers

An absence of sound meant that air was no longer flowing, engines no longer running, artigrav nets no longer holding your feet to the floor. Silence belonged to the vacuum outside. Silence was death.

Harmagians had money. Aeluons had firepower. Aandrisks had diplomacy. Humans had arguments.

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

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.

The idea that a loss of potential was somehow worse than a loss of achievement and knowledge was something she had never been able to wrap her brain around.

The memories reached out to Dr. Chef, trying to pull him away from his safe observation point. They tugged, begging for him to give in. But he would not. He was not a prisoner of those memories. He was their warden.

“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. Your father had probably gotten his way for so long that he thought he was untouchable, and that is a dangerous way for a person to feel.

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.

Kizzy’s voice came through the vox. “Don’t worry, Ashby, I won’t talk at all.” He paused, trying to find a kind way to tell her that was best. “You’re too cool for them anyway, Kiz.”

The people we remember are the ones who decided how our maps should be drawn. Nobody remembers who built the roads.”