The Ghost Brigades

Quotes

1. “Every creature has fear,” Jared said. “Even the non-conscious ones.”

   “No,” Boutin said. “Every creature has a survival instinct. It looks like fear but it’s not the same thing. Fear isn’t the desire to avoid death or pain. Fear is rooted in the knowledge that what you recognize as yourself can cease to exist. Fear is existential.

   p. 286

2. 

   Imagine if every species named itself after its greatest flaw. We could name our species arrogance.

   p. 288

3. 

   She was temptable—which, if you believe in an all-powerful God, means God intentionally put temptation into Eve. Which seems like a dirty trick, if you ask me.

   p. 288

4. 

   “Speaking of secrets, how are your negotiations with the Obin going?”

   Both Mattson and Robbins looked at Szilard warily. “There are no negotiations with the Obin,” Robbins said.

   “Of course not,” Szilard said. “You’re not negotiating with the Obin to continue Boutin’s consciousness program for them. And the Obin are not negotiating with us to knock down whichever of the Rraey or Eneshans is still left standing after their upcoming little war. No one’s negotiating with anyone about anything. And how are these non-negotiations not going?”

   Robbins looked at Mattson, who nodded. “They’re not going surprisingly well,” Robbins said. “We probably won’t reach an agreement in the next couple of days.”

   “How not wonderful,” Szilard said.

   p. 335

5. 

   You are sufficiently like me to officially be interesting.

   p. 277

6. 

   Harvey was not especially introspective, but this didn’t mean he was stupid. He was moral, within his lights; he understood the value of subtlety even if he wasn’t much for it himself, and one of the reasons he could get away with being loud and obnoxious was that he was a fair stick at strategy and logistics. Give him a job and he’d do it, usually in the most entropy-producing way possible, yes, but also in a way that achieved exactly the aim it was supposed to. One of Harvey’s guiding lights in terms of strategies was simplicity; all things being equal, Harvey preferred the course of action that let him get into the middle of things and then just buckle down. When asked about it, Harvey called it his Occam’s razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone’s ass was usually the correct one.

   p. 315

7. 

   Rationality is not one of humanity’s strong points.

   p. 88

8. 

   '''No, it's not fair. You're in the wrong universe for fair.

   p. 238

9. 

   Those people you saw—the realborn—are born without a plan. They’re born because biology tells humans to make more humans; but it doesn’t consider what to do with them after that. Realborn go for years without the slightest clue what they’re going to do with themselves. From what I understand, some of them never actually figure it out. They just walk through life in a daze and then fall into their graves at the end of it. Sad. And inefficient.

   p. 86

10. 

    When power is within reach, few will wait patiently for it.

    p. 169

11. 

    “Harry!” Boutin said. “Nice guy. Didn’t know he was that smart. He hid it well.”

    p. 275

12. 

    “It’s Charlie’s soul,” he repeated. “Or more accurately, it’s a holographic representation of the dynamic electrical system that embodies the consciousness of Charles Boutin.”

    p. 39

13. 

    “I didn’t say that,” Szilard said, in a tone that implied that perhaps he had.

    p. 118

14. 

    That’s physicists for you. Not exactly brimming over with poetry.

    p. 271

15. 

    Human technology was good, and weapon to weapon humans were as well-equipped as the vast majority of their adversaries. But the weapon that ultimately matters is the one behind the trigger.

    p. 51

16. 

    Jared, allow me to share with you my philosophy of human beings. It can be summed up in four words: I like good people.

    p. 113

That’s all the quotes.

16 quotes in the collection · come back when we add more