Leviathan Falls

I absolutely believe that people are more good on balance than bad,” he said. “All the wars and all of the cruelty and all of the violence. I’m not looking away from any of that, and I still think there’s something beautiful about being what we are. History is soaked in blood. The future probably will be too. But for every atrocity, there’s a thousand small kindnesses that no one noticed. A hundred people who spent their lives loving and caring for each other. A few moments of real grace.

When people don’t know anything,” Amos said, “they love having meetings to talk about it.

The stars are still there,” she said. “We’ll find our own way back to them.

I think about all the things we could have done, all the miracles we could have achieved, if we were all just a little bit better than it turns out we are.

You’re overthinking this, Cap’n. You got now and you got the second your lights go out. Meantime is the only time there is. All that matters is what we do during it.

We also both know that when it comes to getting people to deny their own immediate needs in favor of a greater good, asking nicely almost never works.

Nine books later and you’re still here, so this one’s for you.

We knew that, though. “We suspected it.” “Do we know it now?” “We suspect it harder,” Elvi said. “We’re scientists. We only know things until someone shows us we’re wrong.

Portraits of great war leaders or critical battles that looked flattering, well composed, and balanced always felt like propaganda. Tanaka had spent a lot of time in the halls of power. She’d seen many paintings of great men in uniform staring eagle-eyed into the distance where their future glory lay. She’d seen very few paintings of soldiers with only a ragged tent and a dying fire to hold back the cold nights before some stranger tried to bayonet them in the morning.

Fatalism had its dark attractions, after all. Hopelessness and despair could almost look restful.

Every miracle we’ve pulled off, we’ve done it using primates. Just because we’re capable of mind-blowing wonders doesn’t mean we aren’t still sex-and-murder machines. The organism doesn’t change.

I’m heading down to the galley for a minute,” he said. “Grab a coffee for me too,” Alex said. “Oh no. Not coffee. I’m maybe up to some chamomile or warm milk. Something soothing and unaggressive.” “Sounds good,” Alex said. “When you change your mind and get some coffee, grab one for me too.

Let's solve the extinction level threat first. Then we can all go back to killing each other at a civilized pace.

Optimism is for Assholes." Miller said with a laugh.

There was so much that they’d never seen or understood. They’d all just bumbled through, using the gates as shortcuts and hoping for the best. A species of beautiful idiots.

All the places you visit start changing into new ones the second you leave.

If I go to heaven, let it be for spoiling dogs and children,

Fine,” Jim said. “Just covering near-constant panic with light humor, same as anyone.

What a crew does with its rail-gun capacitor in the privacy of its own ship shouldn’t be anyone else’s business.

They’re people,” Naomi said, exhaustion in her tone. “We’re trying to do all of this with humans. Shortsightedness is coded in our DNA.

Part of why I am what I am is all the bad choices my mom and dad made, and if they’d done differently, they’d still have made some mistakes somewhere along the line, and those would be part of me instead.

you’re not that important and it ain’t up to you to fix the universe?

I saw him again. Just now. I saw him the way he used to be. At his best. And love isn’t what got him there. And it wasn’t care. And it wasn’t time. He saw something incredibly, stupidly dangerous that needed to be done and only he could do.

You got now and you got the second your lights go out. Meantime is the only time there is. All that matters is what we do during it.

I took an ethics seminar with her as part of my postdoctorate work. There was a story we read about this beautiful, utopic land where everything was wonderful and enlightened and pleasant and good and just, except for one child who had to live in confusion and misery. One child, in exchange for paradise to everyone else.” “I know that one. Omelas.

Or maybe,” Amos said, “you’re not that important and it ain’t up to you to fix the universe?

The dead were still around him, because he couldn’t bring himself to believe that they weren’t. He could know it. He could understand. But like a kid who’d lost something precious, he’d never been able to shake that sense that maybe, just maybe, if he looked again, it would be there. Maybe the people he loved weren’t gone forever. Maybe the past—his past, his losses, his mistakes—were close enough for him to reach back and fix them if he stretched just right. Maybe, despite everything, it could still be okay.

You want bullshit happy mouth noises, or the truth.” “Bullshit happy mouth noises.” “It’s great,

Tanaka opened her hands, palms up. Floating as she was with legs crossed at the ankle, she felt like a painting of a saint being assumed into heaven. The patron saint of putting up with idiots, whoever that was.

We collect the most astonishingly brave people, don’t we?” Jim said. “And then we watch them die.