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
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Randall kept his eyes glued to the computer screen as she approached. A stranger might have mistaken him for a dedicated Information Sciences professional getting an early start on some important research, but Ruth knew that he was actually scouring eBay for vintage Hasbro action figures…”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from The Abstinence Teacher


“An hour later I'm on my way back to the office, with Nico's scent on my clothes and inside of me. I have a sneaking suspicion that Nico wanted it that way, knowing that I was seeing William.”
― Vi Keeland, quote from Worth the Fight


“But then the devil with the red eyes came to take my son away. And barely a moment later, the Ageless came to whisk my Sofia away too. To”
― Bella Forrest, quote from A Break of Day


“Parents, she thought, learned to survive touching their children less and less. As a baby Pearl had clung to her; she’d worn Pearl in a sling because whenever she’d set her down, Pearl would cry. There’d scarcely been a moment in the day when they had not been pressed together. As she got older, Pearl would still cling to her mother’s leg, then her waist, then her hand, as if there was something in her mother she needed to absorb through the skin. Even when she had her own bed, she would often crawl into Mia’s in the middle of the night and burrow under the old patchwork quilt, and in the morning they would wake up tangled, Mia’s arm pinned beneath Pearl’s head, or Pearl’s legs thrown across Mia’s belly. Now, as a teenager, Pearl’s caresses had become rare—a peck on the cheek, a one-armed, half-hearted hug—and all the more precious because of that. It was the way of things, Mia thought to herself, but how hard it was. The occasional embrace, a head leaned for just a moment on your shoulder, when what you really wanted more than anything was to press them to you and hold them so tight you fused together and could never be taken apart. It was like training yourself to live on the smell of an apple alone, when what you really wanted was to devour it, to sink your teeth into it and consume it, seeds, core, and all.”
― Celeste Ng, quote from Little Fires Everywhere


“The best revenge is living well, my dad told me once.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl


Interesting books

Rivers of London
(55.4K)
Rivers of London
by Ben Aaronovitch
The Lady With the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896-1904
(4.2K)
The Lady With the Li...
by Anton Chekhov
Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
(9.1K)
Shake Hands with the...
by Roméo Dallaire
Black and Blue
(71.9K)
Black and Blue
by Anna Quindlen
Bleeding Violet
(5.2K)
Bleeding Violet
by Dia Reeves
Demon Lord of Karanda
(33.8K)
Demon Lord of Karand...
by David Eddings

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.