84 Quotes by Ben H. Winters

Sometimes it's possible, just barely possible, to imagine a version of this world different from the existing one, a world in which there is true justice, heroic honesty, a clear perception possessed by each individual about how to treat all the others. Sometimes I swear I could see it, glittering in the pavement, glowing between the words in a stranger's sentence, a green, impossible vision--the world as it was meant to be, like a mist around the world as it is.

What we know of the past is enough to be afraid, enough to build this world, our good and golden world, around preventing a repeat of the mistakes that destroyed the world before.

I'm not a slave, man. I just gotta sign out, say where I'm going, what time I'll be back and then I gotta sign back in.

What she was doing was, she was letting it be his idea. She was walking him along, holding his hand tightly enough to lead him, loosely enough for him to be unaware of it. She was an absolute natural. Or maybe all women could do that to all men, if they wanted to.

After all, they'll tell you, everything that happens belongs to the State, and a thought is just an event that happens in your head.

It’s such a fine line with people, whether they’re playing dumb or being dumb.

It's an attempted murder. It's a suicide, but you're attempting to make it seem like a murder.

Respectfully, sir, the asteroid did not make you leave her. The asteroid is not making anyone do anything. It's just a big piece of rock floating through space. Anything anyone does remains their own decision.

[...] no slaves down here, all that abstraction torn away like skin coming off a body, and these were people -- human fucking beings, each with the one life he was given, and this was the life they had.