The Fall of Hyperion

Sol remembered the dream, remembered his daughter’s hug, and realized that in the end—when all else is dust—loyalty to those we love is all we can carry with us to the grave.

It was a dramatization of total chaos, a functional definition of confusion, an unchoreographed dance of sad violence. It was war.

The Great Change is when humankind accepts its role as part of the natural order of the universe instead of its role as a cancer.

“Sometimes,” said General Morpurgo, taking her hand, “dreams are all that separate us from the machines.”

He knew what had to be done. It is not always the same as knowing what to do.

Those who ignore history’s lessons in the ultimate folly of war are forced to do more than relive them...they may be forced to die by them.

We are created for precisely this sort of suffering. In the end, it is all we are, those limpid tide pools of self-consciousness between crashing waves of pain.

The place was part museum, part library, and part archive; I loved it at first sight...and smell, for here there were thousands of printed books, many very old indeed, and nothing smells quite as wonderful as old books.

“War does not call for judgment,” I said, “merely survival.”

Mobs have passions, not brains.