Quotes From "Cibola Burn" By 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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