Revelation Space Quotes

“I think I've reduced the amount of blood in my caffeine system to an acceptable level.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“It looked like a biology lesson for gods, or a snapshot of the kind of pornography which might be enjoyed by sentient planets.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“I don't know." That was typical Sajaki; like all the genuinely clever people Sylveste had met he knew better than to feign understanding where none existed.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“It's an ancient technique known as lying, Khouri.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“The human capacity for grief. It just isn't capable of providing an adequate emotional response once the dead exceed a few dozen in number. And it doesn't just level off—it just gives up, resets itself to zero. Admit it. None of us feel a damn about these people.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“It's called optimism — but I’m losing the hang of it fast.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“Volyova felt as if her brain consisted of a room full of precocious schoolchildren: individually bright, and—if only they would pool themselves—capable of shattering insights. But some of those schoolchildren were not paying attention; they were staring dreamily out of the window, ignoring her protestations to focus on the present, because they found their own obsessions more intellectually attractive than the dull curriculum she was intent on dispensing.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“I think I’ve reduced the amount of blood in my caffeine system to an acceptable level, if that’s what you mean.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“The cards always look different when it's your turn to play them; loaded with subtly different possibilities.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“You didn't weld it shut or anything like that?"
"Yes, stupid me, I forgot.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“I think the deeper we go, the less likelihood we'll have of being recognised as something unwanted. It's like the human body - the greatest density of pain receptors lies in the skin.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“Khouri had never really given much thought to the slowness of light. There was nothing in the universe that moved faster . . . but, as she now saw, it was glacial compared to the speed that would be needed to keep their love alive.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“Gravity ruled, and gravity did not take into account circumstances, or the unfairness of things, or listen to eleventh-hour petitions before reluctantly repealing its laws. Gravity crushed, and near the surface of a neutron star gravity crushed absolutely, until diamond flowed like water; until a mountain collapsed into a millionth of its height.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“You look older, son.” “Yes, well, some of us have to get on with the business of being alive in the entropic universe.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“Believe me, when you're dealing with infectious alien mind parasites, I always find primitive is best." Then, calmly, almost as if it were a recognised form of verbal punctuation, she took aim with the needler and gutted a rat which had dared to stray into the corridor.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“Nightside, cities glistened in chains, and a spray of tinkertoy habitats girdled the planet. Gossamer starbridges reached from the equator towards orbit.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“The cards always look different when it’s your turn to play them; loaded with subtly different possibilities.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“You're confident he'll have found him, then?"
"Well, no. I didn't sat that."
"If there's one thing I hate," Volyova said, looking coldly at the other Triumvir, "it's mindless optimism.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“All I know is that I think, and therefore I’m exceedingly angry.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“As long as we stay together, you don’t have to worry about the darkness.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“Gravity ruled, and gravity did not take into account circumstances, or the unfairness of things, or listen to eleventh-hour petitions before reluctantly repealing its laws. Gravity crushed,”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“Behold the wedding gun,’ the Ordinator said, holding the box aloft.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“For a moment I think we were turned into information, and that in that instant we were linked to every other piece of information ever known; every thought ever thought, or at least ever captured by the light.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“Dimly--at first wary that it was merely a dislodged fragment of the dream--she remembered Resurgam. And then, slowly, events returned, not as a tidal wave, or even as as landslide, but as a slow, squelching slippage: a disembowelment of the past.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“Calvin raised his fingers in lazy acknowledgement. “So . . .” he said. “The shit’s about to match coordinates with the fan.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“The first query had been merely technical; a check to see that the communication beam was still online. Later, the weapon had become more urgent; adopting tones of polite insistence. Now it was getting far less diplomatic, throwing the machine equivalent of a tantrum.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“A fastidious neatness had been at work there, like a poltergeist in reverse.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“Sylveste examined his own state of mind and found—it was the last thing he had expected—total calm. But it was like the calm that existed on the metallic hydrogen oceans of the gas giant planets further out from Pavonis—only maintained by crushing pressures from above and below.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“I haven’t needed anything big enough from you to justify being pleasant, and I doubt I ever will.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“The flare-watch in East Nekhebet had picked up an energy pulse, much brighter than anything seen previously. Briefly, there was the worrying possibility that Delta Pavonis was about to repeat the flare which had wiped out the Amarantin: the vast coronal mass ejection known as the Event. But closer examination revealed that the flare did not originate from the star, but rather from something several light-hours beyond it, on the edge of the system.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space