Frank Davis > Recent Status Updates

"While travelling faster than light was technologically possible, the logistical and social problems caused by what basically amounted to time travel far outweighed the gains."

"Does your name mean something in your language?"

"It does. I am 'A Grove of Trees Where Friends Meet To Watch The Moons Align During A Sunset in Mid' . . . I’d guess you’d say 'autumn.'"

"Mind you, that’s just the bit. It also includes my mother’s name and the town in which I was born, but I think I’ll leave it there, or else you’ll be listening to me translate all night."

"May I remind you of what we do here? We fly around punching holes – very literal holes – through space. This is not a safe job."

"like poachers willing to slaughter a twelve-thousand-pound elephant to get ninety pounds of ivory."

"Drummer decided what the hell. He had only been doing what he did every night, which was thinking about the basic stupidity of life."

"The bruises on his face would bloom, then fade in a week or two. The look in his eyes might take longer."

"So you assume, she thought, and what is the mother of carelessness if not assumption?"

In Australia we say, "assumption is the mother of all fuck ups."

"It came to him, with the force of a revelation, that you had to have been imprisoned to fully understand what freedom was."

"one of his grandfather’s old sayings occurred to him: wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first."

"He was only twelve, and understood that his experience of the world was limited, but one thing he was quite sure of: when someone said trust me, they were usually lying through their teeth."

"The most interesting concept—the linchpin to which all the others were attached—was simple but staggering (to Luke, at least). Debt was a commodity. It was bought and sold, and at some point it had become the center of not just the American economy, but of the world's. And yet it did not really exist. It wasn't a concrete thing like gas or gold or diamonds; it was only an idea. A promise to pay."

Preach, brother.

I loved this description of black holes:

"they had not merely bent the gravity well, they had wrapped it around themselves like a blanket."

2/2 : "For the same reason men don't usually kill women, or not by beating them to death. They can't. However much he wants to hit her, his internal machinery vetoes it. But if the woman makes the mistake of giving him a different signal by hitting him first-"

Well, I didn't see that coming. Take me back to the alien story! Heechee mee pleez.

1/2 : "The reason wolves don't kill each other off is that the smaller and weaker wolf always surrenders. It rolls over, bares its throat and puts its paws in the air to signal that it is beaten. When that happens the winner is physically unable to attack anymore. If it were not that way, there wouldn't be any wolves left. For the same reason men don't usually kill women, or not by beating them to death. They can't."

"...maybe I went to bed with him a few times. It doesn't change how I feel about you."

"It changes how I feel about you, Klara."

"Him and his dumb questions. He acts so wise and subjective but what does a teddy-bear know?"

"I do nothing but listen to them. I want them to say they love me. I even want them to say they hate me, anything, just so they say it to me, from them, out of the heart."

"There used to be a jokey kind of book they sold at the fairs when I was a kid. It was called Everything We Know About the Heechee. It had a hundred and twenty-eight pages, and they were all blank."

"We never did see the worst of it, we only heard about it. One man was still inside the ship. All over the inside of the ship. He had been literally spattered around the control room, and his remains had been baked onto the walls."

"WHAT DOES THE CORPORATION DO?
The purpose of the Corporation is to exploit the spacecraft left by the Heechee, and to trade in, develop, or otherwise utilize all artifacts, goods, raw materials, or other things of value discovered by means of these vessels."

"He could not face his grief, his bereavement. Dream-grief. The loss of a woman who had never existed. He tried to taste his food, to watch other people. But the food had no taste and the people were all gray."

"He wanted to make the world better for humanity. The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means. Orr lay back on the couch and shut his eyes."

"Anyway, so what if he was crazy? What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?"

"He suddenly really wanted to talk with him. It wasn't important what they talked about. He just wanted to hear a human voice."

Artyom ponders that his good luck might be viewed differently by others:

"almost everyone who had decided to share at least part of the way with him had died."

If you've ever been in complete darkness then you can probably also relate to the following:

"The darkness surrounding him became total and nothing was visible. A strange sensation arose in Artyom, as if his body had disappeared. Only the rumour of his former self remained and he depended wholly on his mind."

Artyom, wondering about the people who lived up in the cities above ground before the nuclear war:

"What had they thought about every day? What had bothered them? Just what can bother people if they don't have to be concerned about their lives every second and constantly fight for it, trying to extend it at least for a day?"

In reference to the Great Library:

Daniel: "Yet who among us will dare to go in there?"
Artyom: "Because of the radiation?"
Daniel: "That too. But mainly because of the librarians."

"The entire Great Library was built for the one-and-only Book. And it alone is hidden there. The rest are needed to help hide it."

"only one kind of love has been unique to God: He loves interesting stories. First He sets up an interesting situation and then He stands back to see what happens. If the result is a little flat, He adds a little pepper."