90 Quotes by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Damn you!” he yelled at the ceiling, because, even though he’d come from above and knew nothing was up there, that was still the direction that the powers of Earth resided, whether gods or just rich people in spaceships.

It’s easy, once the lamps are lit, to scoff at shadows.

We are here because we are dangerous. I do not understand: they made us to be dangerous. I do not see how they can be surprised when we were.

Change hurts, but it hurts most those who shackle themselves to the past.

Surely every man’s courage was a rope of uncertain length, hauled hand over hand out of clouded waters. Who knew how suddenly that rope’s end would whip up into the air?

Helping people is like beating your head against a wall, and in the end, when you live forever and you’re sick of the same mistakes over and over and over; in the end the only thing left is just to amuse yourself at their expense. Because you can’t make things better, and frankly, no matter how much evil you do, you’re not making things much worse, either.

I was also one of the pilots, although space piloting is one of those situations where they should really equip you with a dog, so your job is to feed the dog and the dog’s job is to bite you if you touch any of the expensive equipment.

What does it mean that you are there and we are here? Is there meaning or is it random chance? Because what else does one ask even a broken cybernetic deity but, Why are we here?

It looks as though it got into God’s desk after school and nicked off with every single nasty toy confiscated from the fallen angels. It writhes towards me along the ceiling, various spiked parts of it clicking and clattering against the stone. It’s in no hurry. It’s probably waited a thousand years for some dumbass Earthman to come along and wake it up.