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

by Becky Chambers

I like sitting down with everybody in the evening. It’s one of my favorite Human customs.”

We hail from systems that remained self-contained for billions of years, with evolutionary clocks that all began at different times. How is it possible that when meeting our galactic neighbors for the first time, we are all instantly reminded of creatures back home—or in some cases, of ourselves?

How is it that life, so diverse on the surface, has followed the same patterns throughout the galaxy—not just in the current era, but over and over again?

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.

“Just because you leave home doesn’t mean you stop caring about it.

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?”

I never thought of fear as something that can go away. It just is. It reminds me that I want to stay alive. That doesn’t strike me as a bad thing.”

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