Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota, #1)

by Ada Palmer

This is infinitely more important than money. This is theology!”

“A sensayer is”—sobs punctuated his answer like hiccups—“somebody who—loves the universe so—so much they—spend their whole life—talking about—all the different—ways that it—could be.”

I’ve studied the same inventors, authors, leaders that you have, and the thing that most reliably produces many at once—the effect you’ve worked so hard to replicate—is when people abandon the nuclear family to live in a collective household, four to twenty friends, rearing children and ideas together in a haven of mutual discourse and play. We don’t need to revolutionize the kindergartens, we need to revolutionize the family.” This heresy, this bash’, which Cullen shortened from i-basho (a Japanese word, like ‘home’ but stronger),

“Neo-Epicureanism says that, whether there is an afterlife or not, people are healthier, more productive, and live longer if they’re happy, so the government—for us the Hive—should try to make sure people live in ways that make them happy.

‘Observe, Chagatai, the protagonist of every work of fiction is Humanity, and the antagonist is God.’”