Great North Road Quotes

“How many twenty-second-century bureaucrats did it take to change a light panel?
We'll have a sub-committee meeting and get back to you with an estimate.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“She couldn't organize an orgy in a brothel.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“HR?'
'Human Resources.'
'In Brussels that kind of department is referred to as the Office for Personkind Enablement. Resources sounds like something you dig out of the ground.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“Alien Affairs. Bad name I always thought, makes it sound like they're shagging them rather than investigating them.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“This is the age of total digitalisation; everything is online always.'
'Uh huh, and that's why our politicians are pure and clean, and the world works so well, is it? Because everybody knows everything and there's no hiding place.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“The military do so love shiny new technology, there's always so many ways to abuse it.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“Random Acts of Kindness," he said. "You need some in your life. Everybody does."
"No, I don't have much of a rak, but hey, this is the twenty-third century, you can get anything fixed if you have enough money.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“Ego had brought him to this point, that stupid refusal to quit the case, to simply do the job according to procedure and pick up the monthly salary transfer. Now look where it had brought him, sitting right next to a crapping great fusion bomb.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“What's a lightwave ship?"
"UFO, basically."
"Cool," Angela said.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“...Aldersgate Street, the bottom of the A1 - which was the modern designation of the original Great North Road, built by the Romans two thousand years ago to march its garrisons to the very edge of the empire three hundred miles to the north. Their duty was to reinforce Hadrian's Wall, keeping the outer darkness at bay and the empire safe.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“Ian kept his brain in his dick,”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“I will be crapped on from heaven.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“Everybody in the GE used secondaries. It was part of the culture now; socially acceptable. There had been many attempts by the Brussels parliament to legislate against it, and the Tax Bureau certainly did its best. But of course, if a method had been found to clear up people’s finances and put them on a hundred per cent legitimate, transparent basis, it would have worked for everyone, politicians and tax officials included.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“Taxis are useful in this town, aren’t they?” Clayton mused. “So perfectly anonymous. And they all look the same.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“Ian chuckled. “You know what the world’s greatest oxymoron is?” “Happily married,” Sid said wearily.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“Another religious fanatic to whom facts and reality took second place to dogma.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“The dead hand of society’s inertia and the financial interest of the elite minority hold us back as a species. They govern us so they can continue to govern us.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“The amount of regulation is offensive; it only exists to maintain bureaucrat job security.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“I admire someone who follows their dream. Not many people ever really do that when they finally come down to it. Too many choose the blind discomfort of security. Trouble is, there’s no such thing, not really.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“We rely too much on data analysis,’ Sid said, brave enough to ignore the Chief Constable. ‘We don’t get our hands dirty any more. It allowed the gang to take advantage of us.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“Grande Europe taxes were so high they were a joke – his official city police salary was taxed at over fifty per cent, and that was before pension contributions. He might be police, but he was people, too.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“Even in his short service time he’d noticed how brass-heavy the agency was becoming, how expensive civilian consultants were brought in to advise on everything, how essential equipment projects had fallen behind schedule and grown massive cost overruns.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“You are responsible to your political paymasters, and their eternal quest for the status quo.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“The Micklethwaite family who owned and ran Cuckoo Farm were huddled in a group, sleepy and bewildered in thick coats thrown on over their pajamas. Three kids, aged between seven and twelve, were clinging to their parents. An old woman, whom Sid took to be the grandmother, was starting to argue with an agent, her croaky voice rising. She was claiming a lot of rights, as well as being insulting about Nazis and corrupt government officials.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“Don’t bother,” Marvin said as he shoved his arms into a parka, fastening over his armor vest. “Our pallet is only twenty meters away.” He patted the Heckler carbine as he put the shoulder sling over his head. “And my friend here will look after me. You can see me most of the way from the windshield anyway.” “You sure?” “It’s fine.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“The Lord’s universe was a lot bigger than the human soul was comfortable with.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“I’ve never met a good politician.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“using a simple phishing mask over the network’s interface protocol”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“There was being a whore, and then there was just plain debasing yourself—but it had paid off.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road

“bourgeois”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road