Judas Unchained Quotes

“But to have dreamed the dream is to have flown above the mountains so high in all but deed.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“Are you sure it is trustworthy, Mellanie?"
"I'd be dead if it wasn't."
"Yes, I suppose that does generate a respectable level of personal confidence.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“I don’t understand why you need verbal trickery to ensnare a temporary mate,” Tochee said. “Are you not attracted to each other by what you are?”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“Any species possessing this kind of knowledge base is best left unannoyed.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“During the Trinity test of the very first atom bomb, Fermi wondered if the detonation would ignite the Earth’s atmosphere. They just didn’t know, you see. We think the quantum disruption won’t propagate. If it does, then the whole universe gets converted into energy.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“Why do they both refer to your deity while mating?" Tochee inquired as it munched on some rehydrated cabbage. "Is it a request for a blessing?”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“The universe was not built on integrity. In the face of weakness, force can and will triumph. All you can do is choose who wields that force. Us or the Starflyer.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“I don’t get it. There’s nothing here. Send your invasion force halfway across the galaxy so they can build a five star ski resort? That’s crazy.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“rationalize that as something else”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“Their electronics are still back in the Stone Age.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“On the way up I found out what it takes to get there, and what I’ll have to do to stay there. I thought I could do it, I really did. I thought I could be harder and nastier than all the rest. Actually, I can be, which is the really awful thing. But I found I don’t like the price. It’s not who I am—I don’t think. I need a break, Ozzie. I need to sort myself out.” “Too much too soon, huh?” “You changed the world with wormhole technology, but it was Sheldon who built the Commonwealth. Why, Ozzie?” “More fun this way.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“Hey, pal, if you ever find out what real is, you be sure and let us know, okay?”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“There weren’t many people she wanted to face right now. The boy was easy, though.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“He didn’t even remember much of their conversation; giving each other potted histories, women, places they’d been. Anything to hold the isolation at bay and with it the knowledge that they were buried alive. There had been no choice.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“Boldly they rode and well,” Adam muttered as the engine lined up on the Boongate gateway. A four-by-four Toyota pickup sped out of the glowing haze that capped the entrance. A CST security division helicopter buzzed over it. “Into the jaws of death.” His virtual hand twisted the power feed, and they began to pick up speed. The force field extended, sweeping out across the rails ahead. “Into the mouth of hell.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“Their officers had to let them out at night; safe together, they drank and bitched like any soldier since Troy.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“I think it’s a snob. I think it looks down on us as the lower-class neighbors bringing down the tone of the galaxy. It’s not actively belligerent, but like all snobs it has a fascination for what it’s not. Hence you, and others like you. It also has sentiment, which is why it helps us out on rare occasions. Yet it will always rationalize that as something else entirely: charity or consideration born of superiority. The trouble is, I don’t know if it would help us in the face of genocide. It probably doesn’t know either. I suspect it will play its waiting game until the end. And that’s going to be too late for us.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“Always believing you are the valiant one, that right will triumph in the end. It’s not always like that. The universe was not built on integrity. In the face of weakness, force can and will triumph. All you can do is choose who wields that force.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“I look out at my city every day and I see how inspiringly high we can climb, yet in this room I also witness how low we can go as a species. I never involve myself personally, you understand, I merely survive by making arrangements. Out of this I live the life I want.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“But to have dreamed the dream is to have flown above the mountains so high in all but deed.” “Keats?” “Manby.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“Adam hurried into the cool dry interior, for once not pausing to consider, all men being equal, the market-enforced indignity of the doorman having to be servile. Today, anyone whose job it was to hasten him into cool comfort was okay by him.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“That reluctance to exterminate any creature that might be a difficult problem defines us as a species. We don’t operate at their level. That’s got to be worth something.” “Not when you’re dead, it isn’t,” Wilson snapped angrily. He knew that he was actually scared and trying to cover, which in itself was pathetic.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“It’s the assembly system they want to get up and running. They’re using a different method than on the lifeboats, with their preassembled sections. The frigate assembly bays are combined with the station dockyard. Individual components are shipped in directly and integrated up in orbit.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“He always hated it when they had an argument. For a start she was so much better at it than he was.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“The tarn was a long oval shape, with water up to its brim. When the rains came it overflowed into a sharp cleft of black granite at the eastern end.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“This place is like Gaczyna,” she said as they passed a Bab’s Kebabs franchise at the end of a strip mall. “Where?” “A place in Russia that they used to train spies during the Cold War. It supposedly had a perfect replica of an American town, so the agents could familiarize themselves with life in the West. That’s what this is, a replica of the Commonwealth. Everything we associate with everyday life is here, but it’s not actually real.” “The Dynasty’s doing its best to make things comfortable for us.” “Yeah, baby, I know. It wasn’t a complaint, just an observation.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“It was a depressing thought that the answer would be waiting for him when he returned home, a brief historical note within the unisphere.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“Music so loud it was on the threshold of pain; black walls, floor, and ceiling producing a darkness that made you squint, until the rig above the mastermix DJ flared with blindingly intense holographic pulses; bodies crunched up so tight you could feel other people’s sweat rub off on you as you squeezed past; Sahara heat; drinks priced contemptuously high; a dance floor so crowded that all you could do was wriggle in imitation sex—apart from the five people in the middle who weren’t imitating anything. Nobody looked over twenty-five; boys dressed in chic suits; girls in wisps of designer cloth. Paula shoved her way aggressively to the bar. Thankfully, she didn’t have to shout herself hoarse for a drink. The barkeeper nodded welcome and immediately mixed her a peach sunset. She”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained

“One little part of her mind wished she was coming home to someone like Adam Elvin. Not that she needed a man, any man. But Adam would be a lot less hard work than Dudley with his insecurities and paranoia and jealousies. Adam, she imagined, would be a lot calmer and reassuring; someone she could talk to about all her problems with the Starflyer and worrying about being exposed. He’d have answers and solutions, strategies for coping.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, Judas Unchained