Quotes from Caliban's War

595 pages

Rating: (58.8K votes)


“Good, because I don’t use sex as a weapon,” Bobbie said. “I use weapons as weapons.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“Humans can be better than they are, so let’s do that.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“If life transcends death, then I will seek for you there. If not, then there too.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“I can’t fight pirates without coffee.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“A world no longer of haves and have-nots, but of the engaged and the apathetic.”
― quote from Caliban's War



“Do not underestimate his capacity to fuck things up.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“That man’s asshole must be tight enough right now to bend space.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“The best scientific minds of the system were staring at the data with their jaws slack, and the reason no one was panicking yet was that no one could agree on what they should panic about.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“Every empire grows until its reach exceeds its grasp.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“It’s a simple complex system. That’s the technical name for it. Because it’s simple, it’s prone to cascades, and because it’s complex, you can’t predict what’s going to fail. Or how. It’s computationally impossible.”
― quote from Caliban's War



“They’re all fucking men,” she said. “Excuse me?” Soren said. “The generals. They’re all fucking men.” “I thought Souther was the only—” “I don’t mean that they all fuck men. I mean they’re all men, the fuckers. How long has it been since a woman was in charge of the armed forces? Not since I came here. So instead, we wind up with another example of what happens to policy when there’s too much testosterone in the room.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“it was like a bunch of lizards watching the World Cup. Politely put, they weren’t sure what they were looking at. But”
― quote from Caliban's War


“Well, you’ve got a full load of torpedoes and bullets, three Martian warships trailing you, one angry old lady in tea withdrawal, and a Martian Marine who could probably kill you with your own teeth. What do you do?”
― quote from Caliban's War


“All of human civilization had been built out of the ruins of what had come before. Life itself was a grand chemical improvisation that began with the simplest replicators and grew and collapsed and grew again. Catastrophe was just one part of what always happened. It was a prelude to what came next. “You”
― quote from Caliban's War


“Point of clarification,” Alex said, raising his hand. “We have an apocalypse comin’? Was that a thing we knew about?” “Venus,” Avasarala said. “Oh. That apocalypse,” Alex said, lowering his hand. “Right.”
― quote from Caliban's War



“She’d stopped looking tired a while ago and had moved on to whatever tired turns into when it became a lifestyle.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“She noticed Amos watching her. He had a dopey grin on his face.
"Seriously. Now?" she said. "We're talking about your captain going off to his death, and all that's going through your head right now is 'Ooh, boobies!”
― quote from Caliban's War


“Nothing with meat inside it could outrun metal and silicon.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“I still feel haunted,' she said. 'I thought it would go away. I thought if I faced it, it would all go away.'

'It doesn't go away. Ever. But you get better at it.'

'At what?'

'At being haunted,' Avasarala said.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“Reputation never has very much to do with reality,” she said. “I could name half a dozen paragons of virtue that are horrible, small-souled, evil people. And some of the best men I know, you’d walk out of the room if you heard their names. No one on the screen is who they are when you breathe their air.”
― quote from Caliban's War



“Desperate psychotic people do desperate psychotic things when they’re exposed. I refuse to grant them immunity from exposure out of fear of their reaction. When you do, the desperate psychos wind up in charge.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“Every empire grow until its reach exceeds its grasp”
― quote from Caliban's War


“Plan? My plan is to die in a ball of superheated plasma.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“Just do not pull that fucking trigger. Do you understand what I'm saying? Don't. You will be personally responsible for the deadliest screwup in the history of humankind, and I'm on a ship with Jim fucking Holden, so the bar's not low.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“My love is a pure love,” Alex said with a grin. “I wouldn’t sully it by actually, you know, doin’ anything about it.” “The kind poets write about, then.”
― quote from Caliban's War



“and no one had so far been able to offer any scientific conclusions more compelling than Hmm. Weird.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“There was a relentless forward motion to the man. The universe might knock him down over and over again, but unless he was dead, he’d just keep getting up and shuffling ahead toward his goal. Holden thought he had probably been a very good scientist. Thrilled by small victories, undeterred by setbacks. Plodding along until he got to where he needed to be.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“Intellectually, he knew he wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice himself or his happiness to save everyone else. But that didn’t stop the tiny voice at the back of his head that said, Fuck everyone else, I want my girlfriend back.”
― quote from Caliban's War


“He’d read accounts of extravehicular euphoria, but the experience was unlike anything he’d imagined. He was the eye of God, drinking in the light of infinite stars, and he was a speck of dust on a speck of dust, clipped by his mag boots to the body of a ship unthinkably more powerful than himself, and unimportant before the face of the abyss.”
― quote from Caliban's War


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“If we're gonna hang out, there are going to be some things you can do that I can't. It is what it is. My world's limited in some ways, yeah, but there's no sense in trying to equalize it by giving up things you like.”
― Karole Cozzo, quote from How to Keep Rolling After a Fall


“All we ask is to be allowed to remain the writers of our own story. That story is ever changing. Over the course of our lives, we may encounter unimaginable difficulties. Our concerns and desires may shift. But whatever happens, we want to retain the freedom to shape our lives in ways consistent with our character and loyalties. This is why the betrayals of body and mind that threaten to erase our character and memory remain among our most awful tortures. The battle of being mortal is the battle to maintain the integrity of one’s life—to avoid becoming so diminished or dissipated or subjugated that who you are becomes disconnected from who you were or who you want to be.”
― Atul Gawande, quote from Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End


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