It keeps people calm. That’s the important thing. Holden thinks he’s a hero, power to the people, information wants to be free blah blah blah, but he’s a fucking moron. He’s on his own ship. Avasarala...
It had been a failure, but it was a failure he understood, and that made it a victory.
If life transcends death, then I will seek for you there. If not, then there too. He
If Miller squinted, he could see the seventeen-year-old boy he had been under the layers of time and disappointment
I'm getting a medal for falling into a pressure hatch, sacrificing an arm and a leg to keep seven sailors from being trapped in a compromised part of the ship. I was unconscious at the time, but that...
I love the period of rotation. Thirty hours. You can get in a full day’s work, stay up getting drunk at the saloon, and still get a full night’s sleep. I don’t know why we didn’t think of this back ho...
I believe there is a dignity in consequences, Captain. I think there’s a kind of truth in them, and I try to cultivate a profound respect for truth.
Humanity has done amazing things by just muddling through, arguing and complaining and fighting and negotiating. It’s messy and undignified, but it’s when we’re at our best, because everyone gets to h...
Humanity hadn’t changed, but it had. The venality and the nobility, the cruelty and the grace. They were all still there. It was just the particulars he felt shifting away from under him.
Human brains needed an answer, even if they had to make up something they knew was bullshit. A
He’d seen unequivocally that the chaos he’d dedicated his life to holding at bay was stronger and wider and more powerful than he would ever be. No compromise he could make would be enough. His death-...
Hey, she said. Hey. So I have a thing. Is it a thing I can fix? Holden asked. Point me at the thing.
Hey, Alex said, his voice thoughtful. If we made those nukes stop listening, that means we can’t shut ’em down, right? Wonder where Fred’s going to drop those. Hell if I know, Amos said. Just disarmed...
Here’s the thing, Amos said. If you did go in there, you might feel like you had to do something. And then I might feel like I had to do something. And then we’d all be doing things, and we’d all wind...
He was her best friend, but he was terrible husband material. After his second failure at it Bobbie pointed out that if he just wanted something to hurt, she could break his arm for him and save every...
He understood the flaw in that logic: if comforting them comforted him, maybe comforting him comforted them, and they could all drive the ship into a rock while they smiled at each other.
He looked like a kid who just realized he’d jumped in the deep end of the pool and was trying to figure out whether he should embarrass himself by shouting for help or drown with a little dignity.
He imagined himself landing on the station, and Miller saying, James Holden, you and only you in the universe have the correct chemical composition to make a perfect wormhole fuel!
He had to restrain himself from stroking the stainless steel cover while it made gentle percolating noises.
He felt the decision like a seed crystal giving form to the chaos around it, solid, hard, resolute. Desperation, mourning, and a million farewells, one to the other. The word quarantine came to him, a...