87 Quotes & Sayings By James Sa Corey

Drainage tubes ran out of his belly and side, and there was a catheter the size of a pencil coming out his penis. Nothing particularly hurt, so he had to assume he was on pretty nearly all the narcotics there were. James S.A. Corey

In the artifacts that are conscious, memories of vanished lives still flicker. Tissues that were changed without dying hold the moment that a boy heard his sister was leaving home. They hold multiplication tables. They hold images of sexuality and violence and beauty. They hold the memories of flesh that no longer exists. They hold metaphors: mitochondria, starfish, Hitler’s-brain-in-a-jar, hell realm. They dream. Structures that were neurons twitch and loop and burn and dream. Images and words and pain and fear, endless. James S.A. Corey

The messages coming back flooded the comm buffers with rage and sorrow, threats of vengeance and offers of aid. Those last were the hardest. New colonies still trying to force their way into local ecosystems so exotic that their bodies could hardly recognize them as life at all, isolated, exhausted, sometimes at the edge of their resources. And what they wanted was to send back help. He listened to their voices, saw the distress in their eyes. He couldn't help, but love them a little bit. Under the best conditions, disasters and plagues did that. It wasn't universally true. There would always be hoarders and price gouging, people who closed their doors to refugees and left them freezing and starving. But the impulse to help was there too. To carry a burden together, even if it meant having less for yourself. Humanity had come as far as it had in a haze of war, sickness, violence, and genocide. History was drenched in blood. But it also had cooperation and kindness, generosity, intermarriage. The one didn’t come without the other. James S.A. Corey

He is, however, ” Amos continued, “keeping a constant rail gun lock on the Israel’s reactor.” Holden ran his fingers through his hair. “So not too generous, then.”“ Say pretty please, but carry a one-kilo slug of tungsten accelerated to a detectable percentage of c. James S.A. Corey

His strike force stood around him, craning their necks, in awe of the massive emptiness all around. He was almost sorry to pull his attention back to the small, vaguely intimate necessities of violence. James S.A. Corey

Holden was starting to feel like they were all monkeys playing with a microwave. Push a button, a light comes on inside, so it’s a light. Push a different button and stick your hand inside, it burns you, so it’s a weapon. Learn to open and close the door, it’s a place to hide things. Never grasping what it actually did, and maybe not even having the framework necessary to figure it out. No monkey ever reheated a frozen burrito. So here the monkeys were, poking the shiny box and making guesses about what it did. . James S.A. Corey

Posthuman. It was a word from advertising copy, breathless and empty, and all he’d ever thought it really meant was that the people using it had a limited imagination about what exactly humans were capable of. James S.A. Corey

No one lived forever. But you fought for every minute you could get. Bought a little more with a lot of hard work. James S.A. Corey

All of nature was a record of crisis and destruction and adaptation and flourishing and being knocked back down again. What had happened on New Terra was singular and concrete, but the pattern it was part of seemed to apply everywhere and maybe always. James S.A. Corey

The usual state of nature is recovering from the last disaster. James S.A. Corey

That’s what peace is, right? Postponing the conflict until the thing you were fighting over doesn’t matter. James S.A. Corey

Part of his mind was screaming, but it was a distant one and easy to ignore. James S.A. Corey

It was some of Solomon’s favorite music because it was dense and intellectually complicated and he wasn’t expected to dance to it. James S.A. Corey

It throbbed with an inhuman power, tidal and deep and painful. Look at this too long, Elvi thought, and I will lose my mind in it. She took a step toward it, feeling the structures in the blackness respond to her. She felt as if she could see the spaces between molecules in the air, like atoms themselves had become a thin fog, and for the first time she could see the true shape of reality looming up just beyond her reach. . James S.A. Corey

Every empire grow until its reach exceeds its grasp James S.A. Corey

And somehow, that changed everything about sex. The movements might all be the same, but the desire to communicate affection rather than demonstrate prowess changed what everything meant. James S.A. Corey

The sex, ” he said. “I just wanted to make sure that we were okay. That things were all right between us.”“ Well, ” she said, “orgasm does release a lot of oxytocin, so I’m probably more fond of you than before. James S.A. Corey

I don’t kill children, ” she said. “Not even when it’s the right thing to do. James S.A. Corey

The OPA man, Anderson Dawes, was sitting on a cloth folding chair outside Miller's hole, reading a book. It was a real book - onionskin pages bound in what might have been actual leather. Miller had seen pictures of them before; the idea of that much weight for a single megabyte of data struck him as decadent. James S.A. Corey

His words were full of hope and threat. Like the stars. James S.A. Corey

The margins of the space were bright without illuminating anything or casting shadows, sharp and terrible. It reminded her of the way schizophrenics and people suffering migraines would describe light as assaulting and dangerous. James S.A. Corey

Partners, ” she said, and fired two rounds into his head. James S.A. Corey

God save us all from good-looking men. James S.A. Corey

Tilly screamed. Anna’s shocked brain only registered annoyance at the sound. Really, when had someone screaming ever solved a problem? She recognized her fixation on this irritation as her own way of avoiding the horror in front of her, but only in a distant and dreamy sort of way. James S.A. Corey

Reputation never has very much to do with reality. I could name half a dozen paragons of virtue that are horrible, small-souled, evil people. And some of the best men I know, you'd walk out of the room if you heard their names. No one on the screen is who they are when you breathe their air. Chrisjen Avasarala James S.A. Corey

Later, " Amos said, "when you're wishing we had this stuff, I am going to merciless in my mockery. And then we'll die. James S.A. Corey

If we accept the premise that we’re always wrong, it really removes the incentive to spend a lot of time trying to make good guesses because even the good guesses turn out to be wrong. So, make plausible guesses… and tell a good story. James S.A. Corey

By the time the Somnambulist had set her creaking bones to rest on their assigned landing pad, Holden had lost all patience with human stupidity. So, of course, it came out to meet him. James S.A. Corey

The moral high ground is a lovely place. It won’t stop a missile, though. It won’t alter the trajectory of a gauss round. James S.A. Corey

I mean, yes, I did ask that. But that’s not the part that you should be caring about right now. You lied to me. Your involvement with weaponizing the Protogen project is fully exposed, and that question is like asking what color Tuesday was. It’s meaningless. James S.A. Corey

Or was that fatalism another good move in design space? Did the universe evolve eyes and wings and sense organs and bitter amusement at the prospect of death all the same way? James S.A. Corey

Show a human a closed door, and no matter how many open doors she finds, she'll be haunted by what might be behind it. James S.A. Corey

A woman's voice ululated on the sound system, somewhere between an Islamic call to prayer and orgasm with a drumbeat. James S.A. Corey

They loved scenes of righteous Godly vengeance on sinful mankind. They loved to show God’s chosen people safe from harm, watching with happy faces as they were proved right to the world. But they never showed the aftermath. They never showed weeping humans, crushed and dying in pools of their own fluids. Young men smashed into piles of red flesh. A young woman cut in half because she was passing through a hatchway when catastrophe hit. This was Armageddon. This is what it looked like. Blood and torn flesh and cries for help. James S.A. Corey

But we don’t run on facts. We run on stories about things. About people. James S.A. Corey

Nothing wrong with a little optimism, long as it doesn’t set policy.... James S.A. Corey

The grass is always greener on the other side of personal extinction. James S.A. Corey

We're all traitors now.” “Ha! ” the old lady said. “Only if we lose. James S.A. Corey

The closest analogy, the one her brain reached for and rejected and reached for again, was splashing into a lake. It was cold, but not cold. There was a smell, rich and loamy. The smell of growth and decay. She was aware of her body, the skin, the sinew, the curl of her gut. She was aware of the nerves that were firing in her brain as she became aware of the nerves firing in her brain. She unmade herself and watched herself being unmade. All the bacteria on her skin and in her blood, the virii in her tissues. The woman who had been Elvi Okoye became a landscape. A world. She fell farther in. James S.A. Corey

It felt like waking up over and over without falling sleep in between. James S.A. Corey

The fact had become as invisible to him as someone on Earth thinking about being held to a spinning celestial object by nothing more than mass, shielded from the fusion reaction of the sun by only distance and air. James S.A. Corey

The ocean, just outside, seeped into everything. An olfactory reminder to everyone passing through the Ellis Island of the space age that Earth was absolutely unique to the human race. The birthplace of everything. The salt water flowing in everyone’s veins first pulled from the same oceans right outside the building. The seas had been around longer than humans, had helped create them, and then when they were all dead, it’d take their water back without a thought. James S.A. Corey

This was especially true in some millennialist sects that filled their literature with paintings of Armageddon. Pictures of terrified people running away from some formless fiery doom that burned their world down behind them, while smug worshipers–of the correct religion, of course–watched from safety as God got with the smiting. James S.A. Corey

He'd turned away from a life on basic to live in the stars, or if not the stars, at least the rocks that floated free in the night sky. James S.A. Corey

Your fancy alien train is broken?"" My fancy alien material transfer system has been sitting unused for over a billion years and half the planet just exploded. Your ship was built less than a decade ago and you can barely keep the coffee pot running.”“ You are a sad, bitter little man. James S.A. Corey

It was easy to make fun of the marines when they weren't listening. In Holden's navy days, making fun of jarheads was as natural as cussing. But four marines had died getting him off the Donnager, and three of them had made a conscious decision to do so. Holden promised himself that he'd never make fun of them again. James S.A. Corey

That's what it's come to, Miller thought, rubbing a hand across his chin. Pogroms after all. Cut off just a hundred more heads, just a thousand more heads, just ten thousand more heads, and then we'll be free. James S.A. Corey

Well, ” Han said with a sigh, “we’ve gone from no-plan to stupid-plan. That’s progress of a sort. James S.A. Corey

Yeah, " Chris said. "I lose a couple limbs getting drunk and falling into harvesting combine, I'm an idiot. I lose the same limbs because I happened to be standing next to the right door when the ship was damaged, I'm a hero. James S.A. Corey

Nothing like a little shared racism to build ties with the boss. James S.A. Corey

Some things stayed secrets even when you told them. James S.A. Corey

Either help or give up. Right now devil's advocate is just another name for asshole. James S.A. Corey

For a moment, his pupils flickered blue, like there were tiny bathypelagic fish swimming in the deep trenches of his eyeballs. James S.A. Corey

Dead’s not good, but at least it’s simple. James S.A. Corey

Fayez whistled low. “That is not dead which can eternal lie. Or, y’know, whatever. James S.A. Corey

I’m a long-flight pilot. Pushing a little bubble of air-filled metal across an ocean of nothing is what I was born to do. James S.A. Corey

You want a shadow, you got to have light and something to get in its way. James S.A. Corey

Io, this is Admiral Muhan of the Martian Congressional Republic Navy. You fire anything bigger than a bottle rocket and we will glass the whole fucking moon. Do you read me? James S.A. Corey

It was a mating dance only slightly more dignified than presenting like a mandrill, but endearing in its own fashion. James S.A. Corey

The only right you have with anyone in life is to the right to walk away. James S.A. Corey

You can order the sun to come up if you time it right. I’m not driving this bus. Making it do what I want would be like talking someone out of a seizure. James S.A. Corey

The problem with living with miracles was that they made everything seem plausible. James S.A. Corey

Aw, you goddammed bastards! They're shootin' him while he's down! Son of a bitch! " The ship stopped moving, and Alex said in a quiet voice, "Suck on this, asshole." The ship vibrated for half a second, then paused before continuing toward the lock." Point defense cannons?" Holden asked." Summary roadside justice, " Alex grunted back. James S.A. Corey

He remembered the old-timers from his navy days. Grizzled lifers who could soundly sleep while two meters away their shipmates played a raucous game of poker or watched the vids with the volume all the way up. Back then he'd assumed it was just learned behavior, the body adapting so it could get enough rest in an environment that never really had downtime. Now he wondered if those vets found the constant noise preferable. A way to keep their lost shipmates away. They probably went home after their twenty and never slept again. James S.A. Corey

The velocities and forces involved in anything at orbital altitudes were enough to kill a human with just the rounding error. At their speeds, the friction from air too thin to breathe would set them on fire. James S.A. Corey

Given their current circumstances, things would have to be very bad indeed for Tilly to think the situation had gotten worse. Sure, they were all trapped in orbit around an alien space station that periodically changed the rules of physics and had killed a bunch of them, but now they’d decided to start shooting each other too. Yes, very bad. James S.A. Corey

I'm sorry you lost the suit, ' he said. She shrugged.' At this point, it was mostly a metaphor anyway, ' she said... James S.A. Corey

Some things were secret even after you told them. James S.A. Corey

You know, ” Naomi said, “if you’re looking at hundreds of people burning to death as a problem solving itself, that may be more evidence that you’re on wrong side. James S.A. Corey

On Mars, the joke went, a man’s hole was his castle where values of castle approached dorm room. James S.A. Corey

Intellectually he knows that the blood is being pressed to the back of his body, pooling in the back part of his cerebellum and flooding his kidneys. He hasn’t done enough medical work to know what that means, but it can’t be good. James S.A. Corey

He almost blacks out again, but he’s not sure if it’s the stroke or the thrust gravity. He’s pretty sure driving blood pressure higher while having a stroke is considered poor form. James S.A. Corey

You’re too old for fairy tales, ” Baasen said. James S.A. Corey

If humanity were capable of being satisfied, then they'll still be living in trees and eating bugs out of one another's fur. Anna had walked on a moon of Jupiter. She'd look up through a dome-covered sky at the great red spot, close enough to see the swirls and eddies of a storm larger than her home world. She'd tasted water thawed from ice as old as the solar system itself. And it was that human dissatisfaction, that human audacity that had put her there. James S.A. Corey

Fred’s vacuum-rated armor protected him from the smell of viscera, but it reported it to him as a slight increase in atmospheric methane levels. The stench of death reduced to a data point. James S.A. Corey

Every now and then a green dot shifted to yellow. A soldier down, their armored suits detecting the injuries or death that rendered them combat ineffective. Combat ineffective. Such a nice euphemism for one of his kids bleeding out. James S.A. Corey

A near-fatal case of scurvy being the only reason I can imagine drinking something with grapefruit juice in it. James S.A. Corey

She'd been attacked. Just after she came to the Belt. She was seeing that it didn't happen twice."" Attacked, " Miller said, parsing the man's tone of voice. "Raped?""I didn't ask. James S.A. Corey

It’s herding kittens. If kittens had a lot of guns and an overdose of neo- Libertarian property theory. James S.A. Corey

There’s a dignity in consequences. James S.A. Corey

You’re a tough guy, but I’m a nightmare wrapped in the apocalypse. James S.A. Corey