Quotes by Peter Watts

Radar is too long in the tooth for fine detail.

It was machines that scanned the heavens, machines that probed the space between atoms, machines that asked the questions and designed to experiments to answer them. All that was left for mere meat, apparently, was navel-gazing.

Word of advice,” the Colonel said from the other side. “Don’t tease the zombies.

You should get more sleep, he remarked. You wont need so many chemicals.She raised an eyebrow. This from the man with half his bloodstream registered in the patent office. Jovellanos hadnt had her shots yet. She didnt need them in her current position, but she was too good at her job to stay where she was much longer. Desjardins looked forward to the day when her righteous stance on the Sanctity of Free Will went head-to-head against the legal prerequisites for promotion. Shed probably take one look at the list of perks and the new salary, and cave.He had, anyway.

Everyone’s running from something.

A whole planet of worlds, and not one of them—not one—has a soul. They wander through their lives separate and alone, unable even to communicate except through grunts and tokens: as if the essence of a sunset or a supernova could ever be contained in some string of phonemes, a few linear scratches of black on white. Theyve never known communion, can aspire to nothing but dissolution. The paradox of their biology is astonishing, yes; but the scale of their loneliness, the futility of these lives, overwhelms me.

It’s really kind of… well, beautiful, in a way. Even the monsters, once you get to know ‘em. We’re all beautiful.