Quotes from Babylon's Ashes

“I thought if you told people facts, they'd draw their conclusions, and because the facts were true, the conclusions mostly would be too. But we don't run on facts. We run on stories about things. About people.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“Do we have a plan?”
“A couple.” Jim said.
“Either of them good?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. Just different flavors of terrible.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“History, Michio believed, was a long series of surprises that seemed inevitable in retrospect.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“Against all evidence, I keep thinking the assholes are outliers.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“You use a welding rig to weld things. You use a gun to shoot things. You use a Bobbie Draper to fuck a bunch of bad guys permanently up.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“I have killed, but I am not a killer because a killer is a monster, and monsters aren’t afraid.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“My life has become a single, ongoing revelation that I haven’t been cynical enough.” At”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“Whoever screws up last loses. Whoever screws up second to last wins. That’s what war is.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“We’re not people,” he said. “We’re the stories that people tell each other about us.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“We’re not people,” he said. “We’re the stories that people tell each other about us. Belters are crazy terrorists. Earthers are lazy gluttons. Martians are cogs in a great big machine.” “Men are fighters,” Naomi said, and then, her voice growing bleak. “Women are nurturing and sweet and they stay home with the kids. It’s always been like that. We always react to the stories about people, not who they really are.” “And look where it got us,” Holden said.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“It’s a war. Wars aren’t like that.” “Aren’t like what?” Roberts said. “Aren’t like stories about wars,” Vandercaust answered solemnly. “Stories about wars come after.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“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?”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“I told you before that Johnson would be off the board, and he will be. We didn’t take him at Tycho, and we’ll take him somewhere else. He is my white whale, and I will hunt him to the end of time.” Rosenfeld looked down at his bulb, his body hunching a degree in submission. Filip had felt his father’s victory like it was his own. “Didn’t finish reading that book, did you?” Rosenfeld asked mildly.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“The same beautiful bullshit that everyone told themselves. That they were special. That they mattered. That some vast intelligence behind the curtains of reality cared what happened to them. And in all the history of the species, they’d all died anyway. “Attention,”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“The messages coming back flooded the comm buffers with rage and sorrow, threats of vengeance and offers of aid. Those last were the hardest. New colonies still trying to force their way into local ecosystems so exotic that their bodies could hardly recognize them as life at all, isolated, exhausted, sometimes at the edge of their resources. And what they wanted was to send back help. He listened to their voices, saw the distress in their eyes. He couldn't help, but love them a little bit.

Under the best conditions, disasters and plagues did that. It wasn't universally true. There would always be hoarders and price gouging, people who closed their doors to refugees and left them freezing and starving. But the impulse to help was there too. To carry a burden together, even if it meant having less for yourself. Humanity had come as far as it had in a haze of war, sickness, violence, and genocide. History was drenched in blood. But it also had cooperation and kindness, generosity, intermarriage. The one didn’t come without the other.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“The keel-mounted rail gun pushed the whole ship backward in a solid mathematical relationship to the mass of the two-kilo tungsten round moving at a measurable fraction of c. Newton’s third law expressed as violence. Holden’s”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“Because he’s Amos. He’s like a pit bull. You know he could tear your throat out, but he’s loyal to a fault and you just want to hug him.” She”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“Anyway, that’s not what I meant when I said Marco decides when he wins. You don’t understand how slippery he can be. Whatever happens, he’ll shift so it was his plan all along. If he were the last person alive, he’d say we needed the apocalypse and declare victory. It’s what he is.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“Inaros isn’t going to chase after the Giambattista and Rocinante, because he’ll be distracted by the largest and most aggressive fleet action in history kicking his balls up into his throat.

By the time he understands what we were really after, it’ll be too late for him to do anything but hold his dick and cry. But I need to know that you’re in.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“All through human history, being a moral person and not being pulled into the dramatics and misbehavior of others had caused intelligent people grief. Dawes”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“But, Bobbie? Really, really don’t die out there.” “No one lives forever, sir,” Bobbie said, “but as long as it doesn’t compromise the mission, I’ll try to live through it.” “Thanks.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“All beautiful things should have just a little sorrow about them. Made them seem real.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“and the Mark Watney, out of Mars.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“It was like solving a complex math puzzle without any promise that an optimal solution existed.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“I thought if you told people facts, they’d draw their conclusions, and because the facts were true, the conclusions mostly would be too. But we don’t run on facts. We run on stories about things.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“You all right?” He smiled. “Why do you ask?” “Because you’re not all right,” she said.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“Keel-mounted rail gun,” Alex said with a grin. “—that scream of overcompensating for tiny, tiny penises, but might prove useful.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“Do we have a plan?” “A couple,” Jim said. “Either of them good?” “Oh, no. Not at all. Just different flavors of terrible.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“The keel-mounted rail gun pushed the whole ship backward in a solid mathematical relationship to the mass of the two-kilo tungsten round moving at a measurable fraction of c. Newton’s third law expressed as violence.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

“I thought if you told people facts, they’d draw their conclusions, and because the facts were true, the conclusions mostly would be too. But we don’t run on facts. We run on stories about things. About people. Naomi”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes

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