Daniel Abraham quotes - page 5

Holden couldn't tell if she was melancholy or solving a complex engineering problem in her head. Those looks were confusingly similar. (Daniel Abraham)
She could remember the girl she used to be with fondness, but it wasn't a youth she cared to recapture. View quote
Daniel Abraham
Just once I'd like to be rewarded for my optimistic view of humanity. View quote
Daniel Abraham
The several unexamined assumptions in the argument remained unexamined. View quote
Daniel Abraham
Two points defined a line, but three defined the playing field. View quote
Daniel Abraham
All the numberless different solutions that evolution had come up with under all the different stars, and all responding-more or less-to the same pressures. Eyes on every world. Mouths near the sense organs, because things with feeding coordination did better than things without. View quote
Daniel Abraham
"Thanks for everything,” she said to the universe, as if it had been at the host of a particularly good party that was just winding down. View quote
Daniel Abraham
I'm going to go obsessively run diagnostics on systems I know are solid so I can feel like I have control of something. View quote
Daniel Abraham
Evolution was a paste-and-baling-wire process that came up with half-assed solutions like pushing teeth through babies' gums and menstruation. Survival of the fittest was a technical term that covered a lot more close-enough-is-close-enough than actual design. View quote
Daniel Abraham
I'm not sure if dying free is as attractive when it stops being rhetorical. View quote
Daniel Abraham
Distributed responsibility is the problem. One person gives the order, another carries it out. One can say they didn't pull the trigger, the other that they were just doing what they were told, and everyone lets themselves off the hook. (Daniel Abraham)
What you're really doing is trying to win back what you've lost by going all in. It's shitty poker, and even worse as a battle strategy. View quote
Daniel Abraham
But all the stories about the devil making a deal and then cheating missed the point. The real horror was that once the bargain was struck, the devil didn't cheat. He gave you exactly and explicitly all that had been promised. And the price was your soul. View quote
Daniel Abraham
Growing older was a falling away of everything that didn't matter. And a deepening appreciation of all the parts that were important enough to stay. View quote
Daniel Abraham
Routine was what kept the darkness at bay, when anything did. View quote
Daniel Abraham
In a fight like this, unless you're willing to lose everything to win, you lose it all by losing. View quote
Daniel Abraham
It was like a Chihuahua threatening an office building. View quote
Daniel Abraham
Pacifism only works when your enemy has a conscience. View quote
Daniel Abraham
The universe wasn't just stranger than you knew, it was stranger than you could know. View quote
Daniel Abraham
The people who have power over you are weak too. They shit and bleed and worry that their children don't love them anymore. They're embarrassed by the stupid things they did when they were young that everyone else has forgotten. And so they're vulnerable. We all define ourselves by the people around us, because that's the kind of monkey we are. We can't transcend it. So when they watch you, they hand you the power to change what they are too. View quote
Daniel Abraham
It's always been like this. Every generation finds its own way to show that it isn't like the one before. Too much risk, too much sex, terrible music, not enough respect for the old ways. This is no different. (Daniel Abraham)
God might not care about financial standing, but He was the only one. View quote
Daniel Abraham
Patriotism was weird shit. View quote
Daniel Abraham
He probed himself like a doctor searching for inflammation. Did it hurt here? Did he feel the loss there? He didn't. There was only a sense of relief so profound it approached giddiness. View quote
Daniel Abraham
And now they were making music from the screams of the dying. Of the dead. The were dancing to it in the low-rent clubs. What it must be like, Miller thought, to be young and soulless. But no. That wasn't fair. Diogo was a good kid. He was just naive. The universe would take care of that, given a little time. View quote
Daniel Abraham