The Departure Quotes

“And, when the revolutionary cries that he is fighting for ‘freedom’, be sure to go running away from him just as fast as you can, for you can be damned certain he’s fighting for the freedom to tell you what to do.”
― Neal Asher, The Departure

“Democracy is a luxury enjoyed by simple low-population societies, though wealth can maintain it for longer than its natural span. However, societies grow in population and complexity, the technological apparatus of control improves, individual freedoms impinge upon others until they demand “action” from government that is generally eager to comply and accrue more power to itself, and democracy gradually sickens and dies.”
― Neal Asher, The Departure

“If you forcibly deprive someone of that airy concept called freedom, he will resent you and, given the chance, he will fight to regain it. Better, as governments all across the world discovered long ago, to have people willingly give up their freedoms, to actually collude in the process; then, before they realize their mistake, their chains are adamantine. Make the process slow enough to sit below immediate perception and they will grow accustomed to their enslavement; they even might not realize they are wearing any chains at all.”
― Neal Asher, The Departure

“Freedom as an absolute does not exist since there are always constraints: genetic predetermination, surrounding environment, the society in which you live and, in the end, everything. Freedom is always a matter of degree: you cannot wish for the freedom to flap your arms and fly so long as gravity exists, nor can you wish for the freedom to breathe water. You are of course free to try both, but the results of such endeavours are not within your power. This is the big problem with freedom when it is taken up by some political ideology, for those who rely on the term are often trying to adjust the parameters of reality, and they simply cannot. And, when the revolutionary cries that he is fighting for “freedom,” be sure to go running away from him just as fast as you can, for you can be damned certain he’s fighting for the freedom to tell you what to do.”
― Neal Asher, The Departure

“The greater the power and extent of the state, the more room there is for corruption.”
― Neal Asher, The Departure

“What we actually needed was a technology that’s been around for a couple of centuries. It’s called birth control.”
― Neal Asher, The Departure

“It is in fact a harsh reality that he who believes killers are an aberration is also he who has the boot planted firmly on his neck;”
― Neal Asher, The Departure

“when the revolutionary cries that he is fighting for “freedom,” be sure to go running away from him just as fast as you can, for you can be damned certain he’s fighting for the freedom to tell you what to do. ANTARES”
― Neal Asher, The Departure

“technology is merely a tool and any blame always rests squarely on the one wielding that tool. Saul”
― Neal Asher, The Departure