Alastair Reynolds quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynolds Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Alastair Reynolds on Wise Famous Quotes.

Half of all the great art and literature in existence went unrecognised during the lifetimes of its creators.

Having created these cognitively enhanced creatures, the safest option at the time appeared to be to launch them into interstellar space.

I thought we were better then this."
"We're human. Be thankful we've moved on from clubbing each other's brains out every five minutes.

None of us is a monster, Chiku. We're all just trying to make the best of our singular natures.

Life was a very odd thing indeed, he reflected, when you really thought about it.

You worry that we're becoming monsters. Merlin, we already were monsters. You didn't make us any worse.

But the trouble with simulations is that they put up with far too much shit.

Nonetheless, we offer our forgiveness. What is the point in being a superior civilisation if you can't do that once in a while? I

Given up, Khouri? It's not in my dictionary.

Can we drop the 'artificial intelligence'? It's a bit like me calling you a meat-based processing system.

Adapt and survive. Make do and mend. These were good mottos for a time traveller.

It was an exceedingly odd thing to see an elephant in a spacesuit.

But beyond a certain scale vast was simply vast.

All I do know is that in six hours I could be suffering from acute existence failure.

A city's only ever three hot meals away from anarchy.

I was never strong at maths, but I eventually got onto a university physics/astronomy course, and that led on to my Ph.D. and eventual employment.

I'm not a morning person: I can't function until I've had a coffee - or several.

History is what we write, not what we remember. Why should we tarnish the memory of our planet by enshrining our less then noble deeds?

It looked like a biology lesson for gods, or a snapshot of the kind of pornography which might be enjoyed by sentient planets.

There was a moment of absolute cosmic cold, as if a billion tiny doors had opened in every cell of his body, letting in the draught of creation.

Even monsters are beautiful.

Such was the nature of obsessions: no quarter given for the human cost.

But a constant, low-level background of crime may help a society become more robust, more resilient.

First rule of complex systems," I said. "You can't tell friends from enemies.

I'll argue to the death against stupid legislation, but some rules exist for a reason.

Quantum reality is a nest of snakes, Clavain, and we are already poking it with a very sharp stick.

That,' Peregrine said, 'is civilisation. Not all who were rewarded deserved to be; not all who should have been were.

Across the land, the semaphore towers stood deathly still.

He was a thin, elegant-looking man with precise symmetrical features and the hushed, disapproving manner of a senior librarian.

I live each day as it comes." "It's the only way. Pedro

Where no man has gone before - who said that - William Shakespeare?"
"I've no idea.

Autocratic governments are masters of self-contradiction. They say one thing, do another.

Nothing endures, except nothing itself.

It's not how far you've come that matters. It's where you've come from.

The trouble with the dead, Triumvir Ilia Volyova thought, was that they had no real idea when to shut up.

This is life. It's not a dress rehearsal. If we don't do this now, we may as well start planning our own funerals.

Everyone has their fulcrum, Chiku. You can bend anyone to any cause with the right timing.

Without risk in our lives, we're scarcely better than machines ourselves.

To be remembered at all is an achievement of sorts.

Sooner or later everything boils down to trust. You just have to make that leap of faith.

They would continue to live in New Tiamaat, orbiting Crucible.

I'm not massively fond of right-wing nutters or war criminals.

One of the big breakthroughs I had as a writer was when I stopped agonising over every word.

Masai and elephants. The rest is dust.

Enjoy it, kid. Enjoy feeling that you can make a difference.' Floyd flashed him a smile. 'It won't last for ever.

It's an ancient technique known as lying, Khouri.

Wind snapped at me, warm and fragrant. The atmosphere was thick with pollen and micro-organisms, goading my body's ancient defences.

It was one of the oldest tricks of mob-management: give them a hate figure. The

I prioritise story over science, but not at the expense of being really stupid about it.

Humanity is an assemblage of information-processing entities, and in that regard you have potential.

Still, it was vision, or at least vision's idiot cousin.

Weyl curvature tensor ... but consciousness was no

The first six million years had been all fun and games.

I am not cruel," he said. "Not in the sense you mean. But cruelty is a useful tool if one can only recognise the precise moment when it must be used.

Behold the wedding gun,' the Ordinator said, holding the box aloft.

Life is precious. Infinitely so. Perhaps it takes a machine intelligence to appreciate that."
~"Understanding Space & Time

Well," she said, "I see it hasn't got a fuck of a lot better since I was away.

Clavain was looking at a hyperpig: a genetic chimera of pig and human.

It was a mansion of ghosts and monsters, with ghouls in the shadows and demons scuttling behind the wainscotting.

We should have brought a torch," he was saying. "We have been to Saturn and back and we didn't bring a torch.

The next time you need a piece of apparently obscure information, try asking a science fiction writer. You might be surprised.

You look older, son." "Yes, well, some of us have to get on with the business of being alive in the entropic universe.

You didn't weld it shut or anything like that?"
"Yes, stupid me, I forgot.

I'm always serious about my fun. I

An idea so dangerous it can't be discussed. I thought we buried all that nonsense back in the Dark Ages.

Some promises are best broken. Trust me on this: I'm a politician.

I think I've reduced the amount of blood in my caffeine system to an acceptable level.

At best noise, at worse a potentially damaging input.

As the old saying went, the Manhattan Project wasn't built in a day. Or was that Rome? Something to do with Earth, anyway.

It's called optimism - but I'm losing the hang of it fast.

Everything ends,' the Master said. 'That's the beauty of it.

Nothing had ever existed between us except the possibility of something, and now even that was over.

Rise to the occasion. Roar like a lion.

We all have it in us to be something other than what we are, I thought, but we don't often get a glimpse of what we could have been

I think the danger with using the term 'trilogy' is that it sets up particular expectations in the reader's mind.

Victory loses its meaning without the memory of what you've vanquished.

Surely you can hear him now?

I am playing in a playground that's already been played in. I am always aware that a lot of the furniture in science fiction is second hand.

It's one thing to be given a big boxful of theory and quite another to make an engine out of it.

The cards always look different when it's your turn to play them; loaded with subtly different possibilities.

We have worlds to save, Doctor Aziba."
"That sounds ... compelling," the physician allowed.

It is always better to try and fail than not to try.

I couldn't ever write a straight crime novel: there'd be an intrusion of weirdness at some point.

And the knowledge that humanity was not alone in the universe would be as relevant to most as the knowledge that protons were built of quarks.

I'm still bothered by the threat of nuclear war.

Weapons readiness?" "Nominal," Dalal