Quotes from The Evolutionary Void

Peter F. Hamilton ·  694 pages

Rating: (16.8K votes)


“Perfection,” Inigo said, “is what we strive for; it is never what we should achieve. There is no such thing as utopia. Life by its nature is a struggle. Take that away and you take away any reason to exist.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


“Most people who have failed miserably in life itself have one last resort left available to them, they become a politician.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


“So how big an interest have you been taking in the Pilgrimage?’ ‘Big. That idiot Ethan really could trigger the end of the galaxy. I’d have to move.’ ‘How terrible.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


“True life is the understanding and support of other people, of selflessness, of charity, of kindness.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


“Alert> Five Chikoya approaching, open assault formation. Multiple target acquisition. Armed> Disruptor pulse. Maximum power rating. Sequential fire. U-shadow update: landing exit capsule behind Building-D. Armed> Neutron lasers. Maximum power rating. Sequential fire. U-shadow update: decoy capsules on collision vector. Mach eight. Accelerating. Armed> Microkinetics. Enhanced explosive warheads. Free fire authority. Armed> Ariel smartseeker stealth mines. Chikoya profile loaded. Dispense. Alert> New targets.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void



“It is the epitome of entropy, the final enemy of all things.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


“That’s a huge gamble.” “We’re long past the time for careful certainty.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


“They would have thought me mad, even Kristabel. Flying carriages. People who live forever. Hundreds of inhabited worlds. Machine servants instead of genistars. Cities where Makkathran would be naught but a small district. A civilization where justice was available to all. Aliens. More stars in the sky than it is possible to count. No, such marvels of my fevered imagination were best kept inside my skull.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


“Most people who have failed miserably in life itself have one last resort left available to them. They become politicians.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


“Some believe that we will eventually sink back to the more simple-minded creatures which we evolved out of and the planet will bring another mind forward.” “Isn’t that the opposite of evolution?” “Only from a single-species perspective. A planet’s life is paramount. It is such a fragile rare event, it should be treasured and nurtured for the potential it brings forth. If that means abdicating our physical dominance for our successors, then that is what we will accept. Such a time is a long way in our future. In terms of evolution, we have only just begun such a journey.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void



“Every Navy warship assigned to the Sol protection fleet flashed in towards Earth, knitting together in a defensive formation that extended out beyond lunar orbit. Weapons platforms that had spent decades stealthed in high orbit emerged to join the incredible array of firepower lining up on the Swarm. All over the planet, force fields powered up, shielding the remaining cities. Anyone outside an urban area was immediately teleported in to safety. The T-sphere itself was integrated into the defence organization, ready to ward off energy assaults against the planet by rearranging spacetime in a sharp curve.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


“I’ve only been out a few days. I’d forgotten how fucking useless meat bodies are. There’s barely enough neurones to run a walking routine, let alone something complicated like tying your shoelaces up. I’ve had to run an expanded mentality in the habitat’s RI systems just to keep thinking properly; and that hardware isn’t exactly young and frisky any more.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


“There it was, plain and beautifully simple, five generations down the line. :)”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


“The biggest victory they can have is to change our lives. I am going to carry on exactly as before. Anything else is allowing them to win.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


“He knows it never works, so why does he always go for the same type? “Optimism!”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void



“Secrecy is like oxygen to politicians and defense forces; there’s always got to be some of it to keep them going.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


“Typical case, educated way, way beyond her IQ, with ambition stronger than ability. She’s just another cause fascist, son, and that’s the worst kind; they always know they’re right. Anyone who dissents for whatever reason is evil and an enemy, existing only to be crushed.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


“A large part of evolution is interaction. Isolation is not evolution; it is stagnation.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Evolutionary Void


About the author

Peter F. Hamilton
Born place: in Rutland, England, The United Kingdom
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“Okay, I know--my superpower--I'd be able to shoot lightening bolts out from my fingertips--great big knowledge network lightening bolts--and when a person was zapped by one of those bolts, they'd fall down on their knees and once on their knees, they'd be under water, in this place I saw once off the east coast of the Bahamas, a place where a billion electric blue fish swam up to me and made me a part of their school--and then they'd be up in the air, up in Manhattan, above the World Trade Center, with a flock of pigeons, flying amid the skyscrapers, and then--then what? And then they'd go blind, and then they'd be taken away--they'd feel homesick--more homesick than they'd felt in their entire life--so homesick they were throwing up--and they'd be abandoned, I don't know...in the middle of a harvested corn field in Missouri. And then they'd be able to see again, and from the edges of the field people would appear--everybody they'd known--and they'd be carrying Black Forest cakes and burning tiki lamps and boom boxes playing the same song, and they sky would turn into a sunset, the way it does in Walt Disney brochure, and the person I zapped would never be alone or isolated again.”
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“Cel care creează nu-l poate iubi pe cel care critică. Există o diferență prea mare între cele două activități. Una este naștere, cealaltă chirurgie.”
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