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To feel oneself so tiny, so fragile, so inherently losable, was at first spiritually crushing. But, by the same token, this realisation was also strangely liberating: if an individual human existence meant so little, if one’s actions were so cosmically irrelevant, then the notion of some absolute moral framework made about as much sense as the universal ether. Measured against the infinite, therefore, people were no more capable of meaningful sin—or meaningful good—than ants, or dust.

Worlds barely registered sin. Suns hardly deigned to notice it. On the scale of solar systems and galaxies, it meant nothing at all. It was like some obscure subatomic force that simply petered out on those scales.

Memo to himself: the one way to make people panic was to warn them not to.

And even if what they showed you is true, that doesn’t begin to make it right. The cause might be just, Felka, but history’s littered with atrocities committed in the name of righteousness.

Clavain saw it all with sudden, heart-stopping clarity: all that mattered was the here and now. All that mattered was survival. Sentience that bowed down and accepted its own extinction—no matter what the long-term arguments, no matter how good the greater cause—was not the kind of sentience he was interested in preserving.

Evolution doesn’t greatly care about what happens to creatures once they’ve passed on their genetic heritage.

The poor didn’t have them and so the rich flaunted them, the larger and more conspicuous the better.

Who was it who said that a wise man speaks when he has something to say, but a fool speaks because he must?

“But you can be sure there are pockets of wealth and influence, and I’m willing to wager that a few people are wealthier and more influential than they were before.”

“That’s always the way with disasters,” I said.

“What?”

“They’re never bad news for everyone. Something nasty always rises to the top.”

By and large these attempts to rewrite history were not taken seriously, but it was disconcerting to hear that they had gained even a toehold.

His parents had abdicated responsibility to an illusion.

They had been in love, desperately in love, but the universe cared nothing for the vicissitudes of the human heart.

She would worry, just as you worry. It’s the people who don’t worry—those who never have any doubts that what they’re doing is good and right—they’re the ones that cause the problems.