"“We’re flexible,” Campion said. “It’s the price we pay for being sentient."

Alastair Reynolds Literature See all quotes by Alastair Reynolds →

React to this quote

More by Alastair Reynolds

“She wondered if she could put a dart in his eye. It would not kill him, but it might take the edge off his cockiness.”

“His parents had abdicated responsibility to an illusion.”

“But make no mistake. My counterpart is capable of a great deal of ruthlessness in pursuit of a just cause. He believes he has right on his side. And men who think they have right on their side are always the most dangerous sort.”

“I felt a terrible sadness open inside me, a void through which the winds from the end of the universe were blowing.”

“The future might have been crammed with miracles and wonders, but it also offered truly awesome opportunities for screwing up.”

“Sorry, Campion, but we can’t trust Lady Luck any more. Lately she’s taken to pissing on us from a great height.”

Resonant Thoughts

"rogress... enables me to define several... conceptions much more accurately than was possible in 1892, and to indicate, if only in vague outline, what a fascinating field is being here transferred fro…"

— Karl Pearson

Mathematics1857–1936

#philosophy

"Time has to pass. But sometimes its so goddamn long. Sometimes it just seems to drag and drag and weigh a ton. And hang on you like a monkey. Like its going to suck the blood out of you. Or squeeze yo…"

— Hubert Selby

Literature1928–2004

#philosophy

"In 1902 William James, the great American psychologist, redefined religion not as dogma but as experience — the discovery of a new context, an unseen order with which the individual might achieve harm…"

— Marilyn Ferguson

Literature1938–2008

#philosophy

"God's Word reveals the fact that the nominal church, after its fall from his favor and from being his mouth-piece , will gradually settle into a condition of unbelief, in which the Bible will eventual…"

— Charles Taze Russell

Politics1852–1916

#faith