The Lost Colony (The Long Winter, #3)

by A.G. Riddle

All I can do is make the best decisions I can in the moment and prepare myself to make better decisions in the future. Agonizing about them after the fact accomplishes nothing.

the idea that there is something larger going on in this universe makes far more sense than there being nothing.”

If you’re right about something, that gives you the authority to act on it, to stand and not back down. The consequences don’t matter—the world will catch up eventually.

have three root directives, ma’am. First, to preserve human life at all costs. Second, that if ambiguity arises around the first root directive, that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. Third, that if ambiguity arises in the execution of the first and second root directives, that younger lives must be preserved before older lives.”

“In quantum mechanics, if a reaction is possible, the opposite reaction is also possible. Thus, if a black hole can consume mass, it must be able to lose mass, yet it cannot. No matter that crosses the event horizon can ever escape.”

Hawking radiation?

great success is a disease only those infected with it truly understand. In the wrong kind of minds, once it takes hold, it grows, always wanting more, and when it doesn’t get it, it tortures that person, compelling them to drive forward, to push the boundaries and reach for more. And sometimes the hunger makes them do things they wouldn’t have dreamed of before.

That is the true human challenge: to have faith that the end is only a beginning we can’t understand.”

Our brains crave certainty because only in certainty can we know that we are safe and that those we love will be safe. In times of great uncertainty, that survival instinct drives us to achieve certainty. In doing so, the brain can overreact. It can malfunction. It can drive us to act, even in times when the right thing to do is wait.”

life isn’t about what you’ve lost. It’s about what you have left.