"There’s no sound except the wildlife staking out territories and calling for a mate. The sounds are different here than on Earth, but the purpose seems the same. “This is my patch!” they scream. “I want sex! Come and shag me! I’ll give you strong babies.” It’s the same stuff humans say most of the time. We just dress those needs up in fancier linguistic clothes."

“Don’t believe anything on the news feeds. It’s all just a circus for the masses.”

“Maybe one day I’ll be able to live somewhere with a garden. I’ll be old but skilled enough to still have some consultancy work to pay for the space to grow real food. Hands in the dirt again. Doing something real. No people around. Yeah, that’s the dream. Strange how the things we rail against and hate in our youth can be the things we crave as we get older.”

“She speaks with the authority of the ignorant.”

“I made a mistake when I was young and didn’t know how the world worked and I have paid for it. Many, many times over.”

“I’m still not even sure I believe that now. Sounds like the sort of bullshit my psych supervisor would say.”

“He’s trying to get me to confess some fictional problem to him and I won’t fall for it.”