02UndatedPerhaps they'd been conditioned by all the quarantines and blackouts, all the invisible boundaries CSIRA erected on a moment's notice. The rules changed from one second to the next, the rug could get pulled out just because the wind blew some exotic weed outside its acceptable home range. You couldn't fight something like that, you couldn't fight the wind. All you could do was adapt. People were evolving into herd animals.Or maybe just accepting that that's what they'd always been.Peter Watts / quote ↗
03UndatedNot even the most heavily-armed police state can exert brute force to all of its citizens all of the time. Meme management is so much subtler; the rose-tinted refraction of perceived reality, the contagious fear of threatening alternatives.Peter Watts / quote ↗
05UndatedMaybe your empathy's just a comforting lie, you ever think of that? Maybe you think you know how the other person feels but you're only feeling yourself, maybe you're even worst than me. Or maybe we're all just guessing.Peter Watts / quote ↗
07UndatedThe Zodiac had rearranged itself into a precise grid of bright points with luminous tails. It was as though the whole planet had been caught in some great closing net, the knots of its mesh aglow with St. Elmo's fire. It was beautiful. It was terrifying.Peter Watts / quote ↗
08UndatedDogs are always going to come up short if you insist on defining them as a weird kind of cat.Peter Watts / quote ↗
11UndatedBut when the flash flood crosses your path, when the lion leaps at you from the grasses, advanced self-awareness is an unaffordable indulgence. The brain stem does its best.Peter Watts / quote ↗
12UndatedWhat’s the difference between being dead, and just not knowing you’re alive?Peter Watts / quote ↗
13UndatedPack animals always tear apart the weaklings in their midst. Every child knows that much instinctively.Peter Watts / quote ↗
16UndatedIt was machines that scanned the heavens, machines that probed the space between atoms, machines that asked the questions and designed to experiments to answer them. All that was left for mere meat, apparently, was navel-gazing.Peter Watts / quote ↗
17UndatedWord of advice,” the Colonel said from the other side. “Don’t tease the zombies.Peter Watts / quote ↗
18UndatedYou should get more sleep," he remarked. "You won't need so many chemicals."She raised an eyebrow. "This from the man with half his bloodstream registered in the patent office." Jovellanos hadn't had her shots yet. She didn't need them in her current position, but she was too good at her job to stay where she was much longer. Desjardins looked forward to the day when her righteous stance on the Sanctity of Free Will went head-to-head against the legal prerequisites for promotion. She'd probably take one look at the list of perks and the new salary, and cave.He had, anyway.Peter Watts / quote ↗
20UndatedA whole planet of worlds, and not one of them—not one—has a soul. They wander through their lives separate and alone, unable even to communicate except through grunts and tokens: as if the essence of a sunset or a supernova could ever be contained in some string of phonemes, a few linear scratches of black on white. They've never known communion, can aspire to nothing but dissolution. The paradox of their biology is astonishing, yes; but the scale of their loneliness, the futility of these lives, overwhelms me.Peter Watts / quote ↗
21UndatedIt’s really kind of… well, beautiful, in a way. Even the monsters, once you get to know ‘em. We’re all beautiful.Peter Watts / quote ↗
