Nothing degraded morale like the sense that the potential for excellence was being denied.
No one lived forever. But you fought for every minute you could get.
Naomi made an exasperated sound. It was funny, he thought, how you could make someone’s voice out from the smallest sounds. A cough or a sigh. Or the little gasp right before she died.
Maybe one sad detective pulling a nuclear weapon on a wagon would slip through their defenses.
Mark Watney, out of Mars.
Later, when you're wishing we had this stuff, I am going to be merciless in my mockery. And then we'll die.
Knowing that all you can give isn’t enough is its own burden.
Julie had become the part of him that was capable of human feeling.
I’ve always rejected the great-man idea. The belief that human history was formed by singular individuals instead of broad social forces? Romantic, but … He waved a hand vaguely, like he was stirring...
I’m saying let’s go see if we can find some horses or zebras before we start a unicorn hunt.
It’s funny, Clarissa said. Most of human history, going to the moon was impossible. A dream beyond anyone’s imagination. And then, for a while, it was an adventure. And then it was trivial. Yesterday,...
It wasn’t as though they had a second Earth to use as a control. History itself was a massive n = 1 study, irreproducible. It was what made it so difficult to learn from.
It is true that we are not conscious of our dependence, but by admitting our free will we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting our dependence on the external world, on time, and on cause, we arrive...
It didn’t blow up last time, Han said. Maybe it won’t blow up this time, either.
In his opinion, faith was generally for people who were bad at math.
In a fight like this, unless you’re willing to lose everything to win, you lose it all by losing.
If the medical bay could have raised its eyebrows and made judgmental little tsk-tsk sounds, it would have. Instead,
If the last few weeks had taught Han anything, it was that he didn’t belong in the civilised part of her world. His place was in the bowels of the , or the pilot’s seat.
I was afraid you were in trouble for a second, Your Highnessness, Han said, but the barb sounded hollow and unconvincing. Leia looked up at him, and the softness in her face told him that she’d heard...
I mean, weird, dead alien technology with effects we don’t understand sweeping whole ships away without leaving a trace or explanation. That’s probably safe to play with, right?