All the Birds in the Sky

by Charlie Jane Anders

When Laurence was old enough to do what he liked, he would be old enough to understand he couldn’t do what he liked.

“control is an illusion.”

“You know… no matter what you do, people are going to expect you to be someone you’re not. But if you’re clever and lucky and work your butt off, then you get to be surrounded by people who expect you to be the person you wish you were.”

“We could not ‘break’ nature if we spent a million years trying. This planet is a speck, and we are specks on a speck. But our little habitat is fragile, and we cannot live without it.”

“They said that an intelligent tool-using species like ours is rare in the universe, much rarer than just a diverse ecosystem. The most remarkable thing about this planet is that it produced us. And humans ought to be spreading out and colonizing other worlds, no matter what the cost, so that our own fate is no longer tied to that of ‘this rock.’”