James S. A. Corey

“We’re the ones who followed the rules here. We came with science teams and a hard dome. We hired them to build our landing platform, and they killed us. We’re the good guys here.”

“And the moral high ground is a lovely place,” Marwick said, as if he were agreeing. “It won’t stop a missile, though.”

Some secrets stayed secrets because nobody knew them. Some because nobody told.

Never knew if you had any luck left unless you pushed it.

The beautiful thing about losing your illusions, he thought, was that you got to stop pretending.

Say what you will about organized crime, at least it’s organized.

He couldn’t fix the cancer of war, couldn’t even slow down the spread, but at least he could admit it was happening.

“There’s a right thing to do,” Holden said.

“You don’t have a right thing, friend,” Miller said. “You’ve got a whole plateful of maybe a little less wrong.”

Liquor doesn’t make you feel better. Just makes you not so worried about feeling bad.

She didn’t care. Not caring was how she got through the day.

It’s the problem with politics. Your enemies are often your allies. And vice versa.

When, Miller wondered, does someone stop being human? There had to be a moment, some decision that you made and before it, you were one person, and after it, someone else...If he’d seen it in someone else—Muss, Havelock, Sematimba—he wouldn’t have taken more than a minute to realize they’d gone off the rails. Since it was him, he had taken longer to notice. But Holden was right. Somewhere along the line, he’d lost himself.