Alastair Reynolds

"Clavain had been a soldier. He had killed more people than he could remember, even though those days had been a long time ago. It was really a lot less difficult to do when you had a cause to believe …"

"But when she tried to say something, the words always seemed trite and inadequate. Nothing measured up. When any moment might be their last, there was nothing she could ever imagine saying that had th…"

"The new regime which had succeeded his after the coup had become as fragmentary as the old, in the time-honoured way of all revolutions."

"I’m not asking you to open your mind to all manner of nonsense, Doctor, merely to allow for the possibility of things you might previously have dismissed, or failed to give any consideration to whatso…"

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

"Given the evidence at our disposal, only a fool would put any faith in the organic and the machine living harmoniously for the rest of time."

"People lived and died and did strange, pointless things to themselves. So did societies, be they city-sized states or galactic empires encompassing thousands of solar systems. Everything came and went…"

"She must have walked through life with men like him falling at her feet, squashing them underfoot like autumn leaves. It probably happened so often that all she noticed was that nice crunching sound."