Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers, #3)

by Becky Chambers

‘From the ground, we stand. From our ships, we live. By the stars, we hope.’

Belkin, someone had painted above it – the name of the first family that had lived here, and the name that every other family who lived there after had taken, regardless of genetics. This was one of the many Exodan customs he admired.

Easier to deal with something that’s always cheerful and there to help than with us slow, cranky people, I suppose.

In reference to AI taking jobs.

‘Our species doesn’t operate by reality. It operates by stories. Cities are a story. Money is a story. Space was a story, once. A king tells us a story about who we are and why we’re great, and that story is enough to make us go kill people who tell a different story. Or maybe the people kill the king because they don’t like his story and have begun to tell themselves a different one.