Red Mars (Mars Trilogy, #1)

by Kim Stanley Robinson

“we are carving out a new social order and the next step in the human story”—i.e., the latest variant in primate dominance dynamics.

“I know.” She sighed. “We’ll all say that. We’ll all go on and make the place safe. Roads, cities. New sky, new soil. Until it’s all some kind of Siberia or Northwest Territories, and Mars will be gone and we’ll be here, and we’ll wonder why we feel so empty. Why when we look at the land we can never see anything but our own faces.”

“Earth is a perfectly liberal world. But half of it is starving, and always has been, and always will be. Very liberally.”

“What can I say, friends?” he cried. “This is the thing itself, there are no words for this. This is what words ask for.”