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.

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.

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

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.

“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.

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