Explore the most impactful and insightful quotes and sayings by James S.a. Corey, and enrich your perspective with the wisdom. Share these inspiring James S.a. Corey quotes pictures with your friends on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, completely free. Here are the top 643 James S.a. Corey quotes for you to read and share.
We're not doing one of those things where you need me to ask you a bunch of questions so you can get comfortable talking about your feelings, are we?" Alex laughed. "That never works." "So let's not do it." On -- James S.a. Corey
He hadn't been aware he'd felt wrong until he suddenly felt right again. -- James S.a. Corey
Hooray for bloated Martian defense budgets, -- James S.a. Corey
We all grieve in our own ways," Avasarala said. "For what it's worth, you'll never kill enough people to keep your platoon from dying. No more than I can save enough people that one of them will be Charanpal. -- James S.a. Corey
That Holden is up to something? Have you met that guy? He's never done anything secretly in his life. -- James S.a. Corey
There's another mess of legal crap just came through from the UN for you." Holden sighed. "Am I supposed to read it?" "Don't see how they can make you," Amos said. "Just thought you'd want to ignore it intentionally." "Thank you. Sort of," Holden -- James S.a. Corey
So that was the story of who she was. The one who'd been too sensitive. Too weak. -- James S.a. Corey
Intellectually he knows that the blood is being pressed to the back of his body, pooling in the back part of his cerebellum and flooding his kidneys. He hasn't done enough medical work to know what that means, but it can't be good. -- James S.a. Corey
It wouldn't be the first unfamiliar finger up his ass. -- James S.a. Corey
When Holden pointed out that the Roci was already capable of accelerating fast enough to kill her crew and asked why they'd need to upgrade her, Amos had replied, "Because this shit is awesome." Holden had just nodded and smiled and paid the bill. Even -- James S.a. Corey
Miller was staring at him like an entomologist trying to figure out exactly where the pin went. -- James S.a. Corey
Say what you will about organized crime, at least it's organized. -- James S.a. Corey
What are they going to do about it?"
"So far? Get drunk. Yell at each other or at us. Design theoretical judicial systems. Most of them seem to want the whole thing to just go away sot hey can get on with their research."
Murtry chuckled. "God bless the eggheads. -- James S.a. Corey
It was impossible to be intimidating when the person you were staring down was a foot taller than you. -- James S.a. Corey
The sense of being two men - one bent on desperate measures, the other already in the numb of mourning - felt like the last weeks of his marriage. -- James S.a. Corey
The best scientific minds of the system were staring at the data with their jaws slack, and the reason no one was panicking yet was that no one could agree on what they should panic about. -- James S.a. Corey
Couldn't tell which direction the gunfire was coming from. -- James S.a. Corey
His first sign that things were going wrong was a massive barrage of gunfire that seemed to come from everywhere at once. -- James S.a. Corey
God save us all from good-looking men. -- James S.a. Corey
We're little people in big times, yeah? -- James S.a. Corey
Thank you, Mister Patel," Holden said. "In thanks, you may now have all my stuff. I don't care about any of it anymore." "Including the coffee maker, sir?" "Almost all my stuff. -- James S.a. Corey
Someone would run a card game or set up a pachinko parlor or start a little protection racket. People would be bribed to do things or not do things. It was what happened when you put people together. -- James S.a. Corey
A few generations living and dying without a sky, and enclosed spaces lost the atavistic terror of premature burial. -- James S.a. Corey
Jesus, Captain, you look like shit. -- James S.a. Corey
Chief security officer on an OPA ship was a half-assed kind of position, one part cop, one part efficiency expert, and pretty much all den mother to a crew of a thousand people with their own agendas and petty power struggles and opinions on how he should be doing his job better. -- James S.a. Corey
Strong believer in doing what needs to get done. -- James S.a. Corey
It was intentional and inhuman. It was like seeing the face of God and finding no compassion there. -- James S.a. Corey
It was like seeing the face of God and finding no compassion there. Shaking, -- James S.a. Corey
What are you thinking, Amos?" "Nothing real subtle. Figure we hop outside, kill a few assholes that need killing, patch stuff up when we're done with the first part." Naomi -- James S.a. Corey
A world no longer of haves and have-nots, but of the engaged and the apathetic. -- James S.a. Corey
Background radiation spoke to Holden in mystic whispers full of dire portents while he waited. Newcomer, it said. Hang around for fourteen billion years or so. See what I've seen. Then all this nonsense won't seem so important. I'll -- James S.a. Corey
Alamogordo and worked his two-year service stripping down ancient solar electricity stations from the bad old days before fusion. -- James S.a. Corey
Diogo and the other OPA irregulars had breached a high-value research station, faced down one of the most powerful and evil corporations in a history of power and evil. And now they were making music from the screams of the dying. -- James S.a. Corey
The neighborhood was at the friction point between sleazy and respectable. -- James S.a. Corey
Why should going into a firefight, charging into an enemy station filled with people and automatic systems built to kill you, seem less frightening than talking to people who you shipped with for weeks? -- James S.a. Corey
She felt that politics was the second most evil thing humanity had ever invented, just after lutefisk. There -- James S.a. Corey
She was not a political creature. She felt that politics was the second most evil thing humanity had ever invented, just after lutefisk. -- James S.a. Corey
Or was that fatalism another good move in design space? Did the universe evolve eyes and wings and sense organs and bitter amusement at the prospect of death all the same way? -- James S.a. Corey
Shit," Amos said. "And here I was enjoying being so absolutely thumb-up-the-ass useless." "You -- James S.a. Corey
There are two sides in this, but they aren't inner planets and outer ones. Belters and everyone else. It's not like that. It's the people who want more violence and the ones who want less. And no matter what other variable you sample out of, you'll find some of both. -- James S.a. Corey
And with all of the enemy's citizens living at the bottom of huge gravity wells, we don't even have to aim particularly well. Einstein was right. We will be fighting the next war with rocks. But the Belt has rocks that will turn the surface of Mars into a molten sea. -- James S.a. Corey
You're making a mistake, shithead, Avasarala said, and dropped the connection. -- James S.a. Corey
By the time the Somnambulist had set her creaking bones to rest on their assigned landing pad, Holden had lost all patience with human stupidity.
So, of course, it came out to meet him. -- James S.a. Corey
What?" "You're very beautiful," Holden said. "I hope I tell you that often enough." "You do." "Then I hope I don't tell you so often it gets annoying." "You don't," she -- James S.a. Corey
What about you?" Scarlet asked. "You have to enjoy the fear, too. Just a little?"
"Not the fear," Han said. "I just like being a little smarter than the next guy."
"That's all it is?"
"That, and I really hate paying taxes. -- James S.a. Corey
The Epstein Drive hadn't given humanity the stars, but it had delivered the planets. Three-quarters -- James S.a. Corey
The sex," he said. "I just wanted to make sure that we were okay. That things were all right between us."
"Well," she said, "orgasm does release a lot of oxytocin, so I'm probably more fond of you than before. -- James S.a. Corey
It had been the most complex, difficult feat of mass-scale engineering humanity had ever accomplished until the next thing they did. -- James S.a. Corey
I love the period of rotation. Thirty hours. You can get in a full day's work, stay up getting drunk at the saloon, and still get a full night's sleep. I don't know why we didn't think of this back home. -- James S.a. Corey
That man's asshole must be tight enough right now to bend space. -- James S.a. Corey
What have we got?" Ashford said. "Short form."
"It's fucking weird, sir," Chan said. -- James S.a. Corey
Intellectually, he knew he wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice himself or his happiness to save everyone else. But that didn't stop the tiny voice at the back of his head that said, Fuck everyone else, I want my girlfriend back. -- James S.a. Corey
The only thing she and Tilly had in common was their carbon base. -- James S.a. Corey
God, save me from temperance," Tilly said. "You haven't seen a party till you get a group of Anglicans and Catholics trying to beat each other to the bottom of a bottle."
"Now, that's not nice, Mrs Fagan," Father Michel said. "I've never met an Anglican that could keep up with me. -- James S.a. Corey
Tilly screamed. Anna's shocked brain only registered annoyance at the sound. Really, when had someone screaming ever solved a problem? She recognized her fixation on this irritation as her own way of avoiding the horror in front of her, but only in a distant and dreamy sort of way. -- James S.a. Corey
Trashy people puke," Tilly said. "Ladies are unwell. -- James S.a. Corey
Annie," Tilly said. "If I wanted to suck vile fluids out of a flaccid and indifferent tube, I'd have stayed on Earth with my husband. -- James S.a. Corey
But it is only a machine. It doesn't think. It follows instructions. If we learn how to alter that programming, then we become the architects of that change. -- James S.a. Corey
And with the lower docking fees, Eros Station found other ways to soak money from its visitors: Casinos. Brothels. Shooting galleries. Vice in all its commercial forms found a home in Eros, its local economy blooming like a fungus fed by the desires of Belters. -- James S.a. Corey
And even then, she hadn't wanted to die. She'd just wanted it to be over. To be free of it all. For the pain and guilt to be over. And the feeling of being trapped. She might have been able to stand all the rest of it, but not the sense of being caught. -- James S.a. Corey
Like everything else humans built for space travel, it was designed to be efficient, not pretty. -- James S.a. Corey
If Miller had brought him all this way just to let him die in an abandoned train car, it was the longest prank setup in history. -- James S.a. Corey
Liquor doesn't make you feel better. Just makes you not so worried about feeling bad. -- James S.a. Corey
Nothing like a little shared racism to build ties with the boss. -- James S.a. Corey
Drainage tubes ran out of his belly and side, and there was a catheter the size of a pencil coming out his penis. Nothing particularly hurt, so he had to assume he was on pretty nearly all the narcotics there were. -- James S.a. Corey
I want the right to outbid anyone else who tries to hire you. No contracts without my counteroffer." Holden held out his hand, and Fred shook it. -- James S.a. Corey
Mom," Holden said. "Earthers and Belters can have kids just fine. We're not a different species. -- James S.a. Corey
There was an old joke. Miller didn't remember where he'd heard it. Girl's at her own father's funeral, meets this really cute guy. They talk, hit it off, but he leaves before she can get his number. Girl doesn't know how to track the guy down. So a week later, she kills her mom. Big laugh. -- James S.a. Corey
And ... and what is civilisation if it isn't people talking to each other over a goddamned beer? -- James S.a. Corey
Son of a f**king whore," Avasarala said, loud enough to cut through the background buzz of conversations.
The crowd turned to her. She was looking at her hand terminal.
"What's a whore, Daddy?"
"It's a kind of frost, honey," Prax said. "What's going on? -- James S.a. Corey
Gah, Prax said, and curled up into a floating fetal ball. -- James S.a. Corey
Ferns can be very aggressive," Prax said. -- James S.a. Corey
If I had. If I had done those things, that would have been okay with you?" "Oh, fuck no. I'd have broken your neck and thrown you out the airlock," Amos said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Ah," Prax said, a gentle relief loosening in his chest. "Thank you." "Anytime." The -- James S.a. Corey
I like the backup plan better," Amos said. "Backup plan?" Prax asked. "The backup plan is I grab the first guy we see, and beat him until he tells us where the kids are." Prax -- James S.a. Corey
I just said that. Didn't I just say that?" Prax asked. -- James S.a. Corey
So you're trying to get me prepared for one of my crew dying?" "Historically speaking, humans are pretty much at a hundred percent on that. -- James S.a. Corey
To suddenly be so hurt in so many different places at once left her dazed and with a sort of directionless anger. It wasn't fair that a person could be hurt so much. -- James S.a. Corey
A cup in her hand that was either strong tea or weak coffee. She nodded toward his desktop monitor. On it, three -- James S.a. Corey
Anderson Dawes," the pocked man said. "I'm the Ceres liaison for the Outer Planets Alliance. I think we can help each other. May I come in?" Miller -- James S.a. Corey
Protogen is in a position to take sole possession of not only the first technology of genuinely extraterrestrial origin, but also a prefabricated mechanism for the manipulation of living systems and the first clues as to the nature of the larger - I will call it galactic - biosphere. -- James S.a. Corey
Jesus," he said. "What scares the OPA? -- James S.a. Corey
The torches flared and died and flared again. The Rocinante was remade a little, the same way it had been over and over through the years. Little changes adding up over time as the ship moved from what it had been to what it would be next. Just like all the people she carried. "You -- James S.a. Corey
I don't see anything," Miller said. "What's it look like?"
"The eye of an angry God?" Elvi said.
"Oh," Miller said. The heavy plates of his robotic body clicked and hissed against each other as he shifted. "Yeah, well that's probably it, then. Good work. -- James S.a. Corey
There was a button," Holden said. "I pushed it."
"Jesus Christ. That really is how you go through life, isn't it? -- James S.a. Corey
And a Martian Marine who could probably kill you with your own teeth. -- James S.a. Corey
Lopez reached into his pocket, took out a small packet of white lozenges, and popped one into his mouth. He didn't offer one to Holden. Lopez's pupils contracted to tiny points as he sucked the lozenge. Focus drugs. He'd be watching every tic of Holden's face during questioning. Tough to lie to. -- James S.a. Corey
A near-fatal case of scurvy being the only reason I can imagine drinking something with grapefruit juice in it. -- James S.a. Corey
I believe there is a dignity in consequences, Captain. I think there's a kind of truth in them, and I try to cultivate a profound respect for truth. -- James S.a. Corey
The lights were cheap LEDs tinted a false pink that was supposed to flatter the complexion but instead made everyone look like undercooked beef. There were no cabins, only row after row of formed -- James S.a. Corey
Science had given mankind many gifts, and she valued it. But the one important thing it had taken away was the value of subjective, personal experience. That had been replaced with the idea that only measurable and testable concepts had value. But humans didn't work that way ... -- James S.a. Corey
I don't understand," Holden said. "If you didn't do this, then who did?"
"See now, that's a good question, on several levels. Depending on what you mean by 'this. -- James S.a. Corey
They say revenge is empty." "This is my first try at it," Holden said. "Forgive me if my opinions on it are fairly unformed. -- James S.a. Corey
The Mormons had been planning to run the human race's first extrasolar colony from a place that would have been equally at home as an accounting office. It felt anticlimactic. Hello, welcome to your centuries-long voyage to build a human settlement around another star! Here's your cubicle. -- James S.a. Corey
What your opponent wants you to think is useful data in figuring out what they think. So get the early draft, okay? -- James S.a. Corey
The old man was brilliant at looking somber and energetic at the same time. If he hadn't been the executive of the largest governing body in the history of the human race, he'd have made a killing promoting health drinks. -- James S.a. Corey
It was late. Late to start again. Late to realize how many years he'd spent running down the wrong road. -- James S.a. Corey
The aliens that sent the protomolecule hadn't needed to destroy humanity. They'd given humans the opportunity to destroy themselves, and as a species, they'd leaped on it. -- James S.a. Corey
Something like that," he said. "Do you attend church?" "Haven't in years," Miller said. "I was a Methodist when I was anything. What flavor are you selling?" The -- James S.a. Corey
You can order the sun to come up if you time it right. I'm not driving this bus. Making it do what I want would be like talking someone out of a seizure. -- James S.a. Corey
She was grinning like the universe had given her a kiss. -- James S.a. Corey
No one really appreciated how much of security work was just trying to keep things under control for a few more minutes, giving everyone involved in the crisis a little time to think it all through. -- James S.a. Corey
It was what made him good at team sports: soccer, basketball, politics. Miller -- James S.a. Corey
The circle of life on Ceres was so small you could see the curve. He liked it that way. -- James S.a. Corey
Either help or give up. Right now devil's advocate is just another name for asshole. -- James S.a. Corey
Stop making me fall in love with you, Cap, we both know it can't go anywhere. -- James S.a. Corey
Everywhere, there was imbalance, and the surest path to profit was to be between something valuable and someone who valued it. -- James S.a. Corey
Later, when you're wishing we had this stuff, I am going to be merciless in my mockery. And then we'll die. -- James S.a. Corey
Too many people with too many agendas, and everyone was worried that the other guy would shoot them in the back. Of all the ways to go and meet the God-like alien whatever-they-were that built the protomolecule, this was the stupidest, the most dangerous, and - for Bull's money - the most human. -- James S.a. Corey
I thought if you told people facts, they'd draw their conclusions, and because the facts were true, the conclusions mostly would be too. But we don't run on facts. We run on stories about things. About people. -- James S.a. Corey
You never ask for permission, you just apologize later. -- James S.a. Corey
Oh, I know. But it's like my eyes are forcing those patterns on stars that aren't really lined up the right way to make them." There was another moment of silence, then Amos said, "That's, like, one of them metaphors, right?" "It is now." "Buy -- James S.a. Corey
If Fred is showing this to you, Holden, know that your home planet appreciates your service. Also try not to put your dick in this. It's fucked enough already. -- James S.a. Corey
You ready?" Amos asked. "Does it matter?" "Not a lot. Let's -- James S.a. Corey
Io, this is Admiral Muhan of the Martian Congressional Republic Navy. You fire anything bigger than a bottle rocket and we will glass the whole fucking moon. Do you read me? -- James S.a. Corey
All of nature was a record of crisis and destruction and adaptation and flourishing and being knocked back down again. What had happened on New Terra was singular and concrete, but the pattern it was part of seemed to apply everywhere and maybe always. -- James S.a. Corey
The keel-mounted rail gun pushed the whole ship backward in a solid mathematical relationship to the mass of the two-kilo tungsten round moving at a measurable fraction of c. Newton's third law expressed as violence. Holden's -- James S.a. Corey
At nearly five hundred meters long, it was the size of a 130-story building. Alex had said it was 250,000 tons dry weight, -- James S.a. Corey
Naomi's a good person," Amos said. "I like her, you know? Like my kid sister, only smart and I'd do her if she let me. You know?" "Yeah," Miller said. "I like her too." "She's -- James S.a. Corey
Amos found what I'm pretty sure was the most expensive hooker I've ever seen. -- James S.a. Corey
When the lights went out.
It wasn't just the lights. So many things about his physical situation changed all at once that his hindbrain couldn't keep up. It told him to be nauseated just in case he'd been poisoned. It was working with fifty-million-year-old response algorithms. -- James S.a. Corey
Just do not pull that fucking trigger. Do you understand what I'm saying? Don't. You will be personally responsible for the deadliest screwup in the history of humankind, and I'm on a ship with Jim fucking Holden, so the bar's not low. -- James S.a. Corey
It was some of Solomon's favorite music because it was dense and intellectually complicated and he wasn't expected to dance to it. -- James S.a. Corey
You ever wondered why I leave as soon as anyone else shows up?" "I'm special?" "Yeah, I wouldn't go that far. -- James S.a. Corey
You're too old for fairy tales," Baasen said. -- James S.a. Corey
I care deeply about all the fine details," she said, "only actually, I don't. Sum it up. -- James S.a. Corey
You crazy," Jianguo said. "No crew in there. They'll jump you." "Yep." "Then why?" "Because," Amos said, standing up and throwing the towel over his shoulder, "I hate waiting." As -- James S.a. Corey
Shouldn't let go of being educated," he said. "Universe spent a lot of time telling you something. Now you're second-guessing it. Maybe all those other things were getting you ready for this." Something -- James S.a. Corey
There are no souls, Melba thought with a touch of pity. We are bags of meat with a little electricity running through them. No ghosts, no spirits, no souls. The only thing that survives is the story people tell about you. -- James S.a. Corey
Miller watched a little piece of the man's idealism die and was sorry that it gave him joy. So -- James S.a. Corey
The lights shifted into and out of his field of view. He wondered if that was what it would be like to look at stars. He'd never looked up at a sky. The thought inspired a certain vertigo. A sense of terror of the infinite that was almost pleasant. There -- James S.a. Corey
Meditating deeply so that she could really, clearly experience being angry and lonesome and hurt and horror-struck never seemed as good as a strong gin and tonic and another hour of work. -- James S.a. Corey
We're like children," Anna said, pushing herself to her feet and lecturing down at him. "Who burn their hands on a hot stove and then think the solution is to blow up all the stoves. -- James S.a. Corey
Even in the Belt, youth brought invulnerability, immortality, the unshakable conviction that for you, things would be different. The laws of physics would cut you a break, the missiles would never hit, the air would never hiss out into nothing. -- James S.a. Corey
As soon as we get the place secure, I'll get in touch," Miller said. "Okay, but don't take too long. If Thoth Station has a whorehouse left standing, I'm going to need help prying Amos out of it. -- James S.a. Corey
Holden shot him in the throat. Somewhere in his brain stem, Detective Miller nodded in approval. -- James S.a. Corey
For another thing, we're under martial law, so I can do very nearly whatever the fuck I want. Including march through your precious little ship there towing you along behind in a ball gag and lacy underwear. So your warrant bullshit? You can roll that up and fuck it. Now tell me why I'm here. -- James S.a. Corey
You think somebody built those towers and structures and then just left? This whole planet is a murder scene. An empty apartment with warm food on the table and all the clothes still in the closets. This is some Croatoan shit." "The -- James S.a. Corey
It was the widest concerted attack ever. Hundreds of ships on at least four sides. Dozens of stations, millions of lives. Among the stars, it didn't stand out. -- James S.a. Corey
There is a civilization out there that built the protomolecule and hurled it at us over two billion years ago. They were already gods at that point. -- James S.a. Corey
Ferns can be very aggressive -- James S.a. Corey
After a few decades, you come to a place where you realize that there's really no difference between trying and not trying ... If someone is ready to accept Christ, it doesn't take much effort on my part to help them. If they aren't, no amount of hectoring them does any good. So why try? -- James S.a. Corey
Holden thought he had probably been a very good scientist. Thrilled by small victories, undeterred by setbacks. -- James S.a. Corey
What makes you such an expert on alien life?" Scarlet asked after a few minutes.
"I've been all over the galaxy. Seen a lot of stuff," Han said. "Plus, I have common sense. -- James S.a. Corey
How the fuck do you keep your hair like that? I look like a hedgehog's been humping my skull. -- James S.a. Corey
Miller caught the red-and-green border that meant either a priority message or an early Christmas card. -- James S.a. Corey
Keel-mounted rail gun," Alex said with a grin. " - that scream of overcompensating for tiny, tiny penises, but might prove useful. -- James S.a. Corey
And I understand you've got a few after-market add-ons - " "Keel-mounted rail gun," Alex said with a grin. " - that scream of overcompensating for tiny, tiny penises, but might prove useful. The -- James S.a. Corey
Yeah," Chris said. "I lose a couple limbs getting drunk and falling into harvesting combine, I'm an idiot. I lose the same limbs because I happened to be standing next to the right door when the ship was damaged, I'm a hero. -- James S.a. Corey
Amos took a high-caliber automatic that fired self-propelled rounds, recoilless and designed for use in zero g. Old-fashioned slug throwers were more reliable, but in null gravity they were also maneuvering thrusters. -- James S.a. Corey
So there was this unlicensed brothel down in sector 18. We went thinking we'd be hauling fifteen, twenty people in. More, maybe. Got there, and the place was stripped to the stone, -- James S.a. Corey
Nothing that'll kill us sounded good, but Holden felt a pang for his coffeemaker. Alex, -- James S.a. Corey
Your fancy alien train is broken?"
"My fancy alien material transfer system has been sitting unused for over a billion years and half the planet just exploded. Your ship was built less than a decade ago and you can barely keep the coffee pot running."
"You are a sad, bitter little man. -- James S.a. Corey
Things changed, and they didn't change back. But sometimes they got better. -- James S.a. Corey
The Nazis aren't from space. They are right here among us. They are the beasts of our worst nature. -- James S.a. Corey
Yes, ma'am," Soren said. "But I was wondering whether you should alert the security service about your decision to clear the sergeant. They do like to be in the loop on that kind of thing." "Meow meow cry meow meow," Avasarala said. "That's all I heard you say." "Yes, ma'am," Soren said. Bobbie -- James S.a. Corey
I still feel haunted,' she said. 'I thought it would go away. I thought if I faced it, it would all go away.'
'It doesn't go away. Ever. But you get better at it.'
'At what?'
'At being haunted,' Avasarala said. -- James S.a. Corey
Point of clarification," Alex said, raising his hand. "We have an apocalypse comin'? Was that a thing we knew about?" "Venus," Avasarala said. "Oh. That apocalypse," Alex said, lowering his hand. "Right. -- James S.a. Corey
You fucked your prisoner?" Avasarala said, her expression evenly divided between amusement and disgust. "Nah," Amos said. "I don't tend to do that with people I like. -- James S.a. Corey
I am declaring this vessel in violation of laws and standards," Avasarala said. "Cotyar, you're witness to that." "As you say, ma'am." "All right, then. Bobbie. Get me control of this fucking ship. -- James S.a. Corey
What happened?" she asked.
"The landing pad blew up."
"Oh," she said. And then, "do they do that?"
"No. No, they really don't. -- James S.a. Corey
It was a real book - onionskin pages bound in what might have been actual leather. Miller had seen pictures of them before; the idea of that much weight for a single megabyte of data struck him as decadent. -- James S.a. Corey
But, Bobbie? Really, really don't die out there." "No one lives forever, sir," Bobbie said, "but as long as it doesn't compromise the mission, I'll try to live through it." "Thanks. -- James S.a. Corey
Dammit," Holden said after he'd killed the connection. "You ever get the sense that the universe is out to get you?" "Sometimes I get the sense that the universe is out to get you," Amos said with a grin. "It's fun to watch. -- James S.a. Corey
All posthuman meant, literally speaking, was what you were when you weren't human anymore. -- James S.a. Corey
Chief Engineer Naomi Nagata towered over him. She stood almost two full meters tall, her mop of curly hair tied back into a black tail, her expression halfway between amusement and annoyance. -- James S.a. Corey
Let me get this straight," he said. "You'll give me all the kingdoms of the Earth if I just bow down and do one act of worship for you?" Dresden -- James S.a. Corey
Anyway, that's not what I meant when I said Marco decides when he wins. You don't understand how slippery he can be. Whatever happens, he'll shift so it was his plan all along. If he were the last person alive, he'd say we needed the apocalypse and declare victory. It's what he is. -- James S.a. Corey
It had been a failure, but it was a failure he understood, and that made it a victory. -- James S.a. Corey
Elvi blinked in puzzlement as Murtry left. "Is he mad at me?" "Sweetie," Amos said, clapping her on the back, "that just means you're not an asshole. -- James S.a. Corey
Maybe it was a cumulative process, like smoking cigarettes. One didn't do much. Five didn't do much more. Every emotion he'd shut down, every human contact he'd spurned, every love and friendship and moment of compassion from which he'd turned had taken him a degree away from himself. -- James S.a. Corey
Every empire grow until its reach exceeds its grasp -- James S.a. Corey
When it comes to scrapes, I'm what you might call a talented amateur. But I've gotten a good look at that women in and out of that fancy mechanical shell she wears. She's a pro. We're not playing the same sport. -- James S.a. Corey
She sat at the dining table, a steaming mug of tea in front of her, a distant look in her eyes. Holden couldn't tell if she was melancholy or solving a complex engineering problem in her head. Those looks were confusingly similar. -- James S.a. Corey
Dare to be as great as the people who love you mistakenly think you are. -- James S.a. Corey
I keep warning you. Doors and corners, kid. That's where they get you. Humans are too fucking stupid to listen. -- James S.a. Corey
It's not that bad. Conspiracy theories come up whenever people feel like the universe is too random. Absurd. If it's all an enemy plot, at least there's someone calling the shots. -- James S.a. Corey
Everyone too busy trying to survive to spend any time creating something new. -- James S.a. Corey
The man he'd once been wasn't a collection of personality traits. He was the things he knew, the desires of his heart, the skills he had. -- James S.a. Corey
To beat a man - even to beat a man to death - was at least proof that you took him seriously as a man. -- James S.a. Corey
They'd made the bricks from the local earth, processed through some of the mining equipment and fired in a kiln powered by combustion. It could only have been more primitive if they'd dug a cave and painted bison on the walls. -- James S.a. Corey
Acceleration is pressing his eyeballs out of their right shape. High tech astigmatism. -- James S.a. Corey
You look old, Fred." "I feel old. But it's better than the alternative. -- James S.a. Corey
War without end.
Well, what was history without that?
And how would having the stars change anything? -- James S.a. Corey
I'm not embarrassed," Han said to the back of her head. "I am a very good-looking man."
"Indeed you are, sir," the droid replied. -- James S.a. Corey
Alex's experience of real family - of blood relations - was more like having a lot of people who had all wound up on the same mailing list without knowing quite why they signed up for it. -- James S.a. Corey
Later," Amos said, "when you're wishing we had this stuff, I am going to be merciless in my mockery. And then we'll die." Holden -- James S.a. Corey
When the crisis comes, we all pull together naturally. It's easy then. It's when things drag on too long that we have to make the effort. We need to make sure everyone sees we're all in this together. -- James S.a. Corey
Holden was imagining what several hundred rounds of Teflon-coated tungsten steel going five thousand meters per second would do to human bodies when Alex threw down the throttle and a roomful of elephants swan dived onto his chest. -- James S.a. Corey
The sunset was a massive canvas of gold and orange, green and rose, gray and indigo and blue. It reminded him of beaches on the North American west coast, except there were no vendors clogging the place and no advertising drones muttering about the joys of commerce. -- James S.a. Corey
Epithets like that are an attempt to dehumanize a group so that you won't feel as bad about killing them. -- James S.a. Corey
I meant fact," Holden went on as if he hadn't heard Alex at all. "I thought if you told people facts, they'd draw their conclusions, and because the facts were true, the conclusions mostly would be too. But we don't run on facts. We run on stories about things. About -- James S.a. Corey
Fred's vacuum-rated armor protected him from the smell of viscera, but it reported it to him as a slight increase in atmospheric methane levels. The stench of death reduced to a data point. -- James S.a. Corey
One of your three mothers did the cooking? How traditional,Naomi said with a smirk. -- James S.a. Corey
No one'll see us coming," Han said. "And everyone dies sometime."
"Not comforting."
"The alternative is we go spend a bunch of time waiting for you to come up with some other plan that doesn't work. -- James S.a. Corey
Don't think about the odds," Bobbie said. "Think about the stakes. Think how much we lose if we take the risk and it goes wrong. -- James S.a. Corey
To be monitoring anything we fucking say. If you wanted to discuss menstruation at great length and detail, this is probably our best chance. He's always been squeamish about women, and no one likes a Peeping Tom, even if he is prime minister. -- James S.a. Corey
Stars are better off without us. -- James S.a. Corey
Never heard of 'em."
"Yeah, you have, but context is everything, ain't it? -- James S.a. Corey
His enthusiasm was exhausting and charming at the same time. He wanted to impress her, so she resolved to be impressed. It was a small enough thing to give someone. -- James S.a. Corey
Drinking coffee was one of the activities that didn't make the transition to microgravity well, but at half a g, it was fine. -- James S.a. Corey
Around them, the hotel restaurant was busy. Last shift's prostitutes mixed with the next shift's tourists and businessmen at the cheap pink-lit buffet. -- James S.a. Corey
He stretched, ate his last bite of fungal curds, drank the dregs of something not entirely unlike coffee, and headed out to keep peace in wartime. -- James S.a. Corey
The millions of skin-bound complications of salt water and minerals that were human bodies scattered throughout the Belt still needed food and air and clean water, energy and shelter. -- James S.a. Corey
Whenever her focus slipped, it slipped onto James Holden. The sound of his voice, his despairing and undaunted laughter, the shape of his ass. He haunted her. -- James S.a. Corey
You've got a pit bull on one side of you and a rottweiler on the other, first thing you do is drop your steak. Miller -- James S.a. Corey
The thing Alex Kamal liked most about the long haul was how it changed the experience of time. The weeks - sometimes months - spent on the burn were like stepping out of history into some small, separate universe. -- James S.a. Corey
He looked at the cop. He'd known the man less than a day, didn't trust him, and wasn't sure he much liked him. And this was who he'd die with. -- James S.a. Corey
Part of his mind was screaming, but it was a distant one and easy to ignore. -- James S.a. Corey
New Terrans, she supposed. Unless the squatters' naming schema won out. Then ... what? Ilusians? Illusions? It was a stupid fucking name. -- James S.a. Corey
This kind of thing requires secrecy to function, so exposing all the secrets hurts them in the end. It's the only way this really, permanently stops. -- James S.a. Corey
Stop busting my balls, Soren. I'm out of tea. -- James S.a. Corey
No rest for the wicked, no peace for the good. -- James S.a. Corey
Because we can't just blow up enough things that this becomes a good situation. -- James S.a. Corey
Jim, they make these things not to be fiddled with. The civilian version of this device fuses itself into a solid lump of silicon if it thinks it's being tampered with. Who knows what the military version of the fail-safe is? Drop the magnetic bottle in the reactor? Turn us into a supernova? -- James S.a. Corey
As long as you always see the next step, you can walk the whole way." She -- James S.a. Corey
Something out there has a comm array that'll put a dot the size of your anus on us from over three AU away," Alex said. "Okay, wow, that's impressive. What is our anus-sized dot saying?" Holden asked. -- James S.a. Corey
She felt like a world-class musician standing before a full auditorium and handed a kazoo. -- James S.a. Corey
The margins of the space were bright without illuminating anything or casting shadows, sharp and terrible. It reminded her of the way schizophrenics and people suffering migraines would describe light as assaulting and dangerous. -- James S.a. Corey
There were children playing on the commons. He thought of them as children, though he remembered thinking of himself as an adult at that age. Fifteen, sixteen years old. -- James S.a. Corey
I mean, weird, dead alien technology with effects we don't understand sweeping whole ships away without leaving a trace or explanation. That's probably safe to play with, right? -- James S.a. Corey
A bicycle?" Amos leaned on the breakfast bar. "Sure. They don't need fuel, they don't get sick. Most of the repairs, you can handle on your own. You're looking for post-apocalyptic transportation, bikes are the way to go. -- James S.a. Corey
Plan? My plan is to die in a ball of superheated plasma. -- James S.a. Corey
Structures are never monolithic. -- James S.a. Corey
Partners, she said, and fired two rounds into his head. -- James S.a. Corey
That was the danger of being old and a politician. Habits outlived the situations that created them. Policies remained in place after the situations that inspired them had changed. -- James S.a. Corey
No matter how intense the situation, or how powerful the feelings, it was impossible to maintain a heightened emotional state forever. Eventually you'd just get tired and want it to end. -- James S.a. Corey
It was his job to expect the worst of humanity, including myself. -- James S.a. Corey
For a moment, his pupils flickered blue, like there were tiny bathypelagic fish swimming in the deep trenches of his eyeballs. -- James S.a. Corey
Russian," she replied with a nod. "Born in Kimry. But a Muscovite for most of my adult life. North American?" "Montana. Farming collective." "I hear Montana is nice. -- James S.a. Corey
You have allied yourself with stupid, violent men, and you are trying to convince yourself that being stupid and violent will work. That makes you stupid too. I will never help you. I'll fight you now." Cortez -- James S.a. Corey
The mechanic had laid out two suits of their Martian-made light combat armour, a number of rifles and shotguns, and stacks of ammunition and explosives.
"What," Holden said, "is all this?"
"You said to gear up for the drop."
"I meant, like, underwear and toothbrushes. -- James S.a. Corey
Stupid. Shortsighted. A man born with a sense for raw opportunity where his soul should have been. Miller's -- James S.a. Corey
You know," Naomi said, "if you're looking at hundreds of people burning to death as a problem solving itself, that may be more evidence that you're on wrong side. -- James S.a. Corey
The Rabia Balkhi, registered to Captain Eric Khan out of Pallas, was still just goods and people heading into the frontier to stake a claim. Fewer horses, maybe, but more fusion reactors. -- James S.a. Corey
Her life had been squandered, and whether she said it in pentameter or not didn't seem to matter much. -- James S.a. Corey
When you got a nail to drive, use the fucking hammer. -- James S.a. Corey
Any government was going to have traffic laws. Before the Emperor, the Republic had enforced its edicts at the laser-sharp edge of a Jedi's lightsaber. It was the way the universe worked. -- James S.a. Corey
GOODY. MY SPLEEN IS COLLAPSING. HURRY UP. -- James S.a. Corey
People always whispered when they were hiding. Wrapped in a space suit and surrounded by vacuum, Gomez could have been lighting fireworks inside his armor and no one would have heard it, but he whispered. -- James S.a. Corey
The problem with living with miracles was that they made everything seem plausible. -- James S.a. Corey
The moral complexity of the situation had grown past his ability to process it, so he just relaxed in the warm glow of victory instead. -- James S.a. Corey
I've watched too many Kurosawa movies, she thought, but couldn't quite abandon the idea. The imagery was a lovely way of turning angst and suicidal ideation into honor and noble sacrifice. -- James S.a. Corey
Living on the surface of a planet, mass sucking at every bone and muscle, and nothing but gravity to keep your air close, seemed like a fast path to crazy. -- James S.a. Corey
It's all fun and games till someone shoots back, Holden thought. -- James S.a. Corey
So are you conscious?" The alien robot - the skin the Miller construct was using - shrugged. It was strange how well the gesture translated. "Don't know. Seems like I'm acing my Turing test, though. -- James S.a. Corey
Once is never. Twice is always. -- James S.a. Corey
The second corpse sat up and then stood, clutching her belly. A man stepped into the frame, a gun in his hand, healing her by sucking the bullet from her guts. They argued, grew calm, parted peaceably. -- James S.a. Corey
Here's the thing," Amos said. "If you did go in there, you might feel like you had to do something. And then I might feel like I had to do something. And then we'd all be doing things, and we'd all wind up having a worse day, just in general. -- James S.a. Corey
The beautiful thing about losing your illusions, he thought, was that you got to stop pretending. -- James S.a. Corey
If we accept the premise that we're always wrong, it really removes the incentive to spend a lot of time trying to make good guesses because even the good guesses turn out to be wrong. So, make plausible guesses ... and tell a good story. -- James S.a. Corey
Holden had once dated a Buddhist who said that death was merely a different state of being, and people only feared the unknown that lay behind that transition. Death without warning was preferable, as it removed all fear.
He felt he now had the counterargument. -- James S.a. Corey
He'd never been to military pilot school, but he knew that years of training had compartmentalized Alex's brain into two halves: piloting problems and, secondarily, everything else. -- James S.a. Corey
and no one had so far been able to offer any scientific conclusions more compelling than Hmm. Weird. -- James S.a. Corey
The fact had become as invisible to him as someone on Earth thinking about being held to a spinning celestial object by nothing more than mass, shielded from the fusion reaction of the sun by only distance and air. -- James S.a. Corey
The elegance and functionality of the structure lay out before him, as beautiful and simple and effective as a leaf or a root cluster. To have something so much like the fruits of evolution, but designed by human minds, was -- James S.a. Corey
Well, you've got a full load of torpedoes and bullets, three Martian warships trailing you, one angry old lady in tea withdrawal, and a Martian Marine who could probably kill you with your own teeth. What do you do? -- James S.a. Corey
The ship name. It's unusual. I swear, if I board one more ship named after someone's kid or the girl they left behind after that magical weekend on Titan, I'm going to start fining people for general lack of creativity." Holden -- James S.a. Corey
She wondered what she would do or say if someone walked through the archway, but it was night, and the nights here were very long. There was room in them. -- James S.a. Corey
She was on their bed, her knees curled up toward her chest, her eyes closed, her hair spilling over the gel. She snored a little, soft animal sounds of peace and contentment. -- James S.a. Corey
They were civilians. Killing them was, at the very least, bad form. But then Julie whispered in the back of his mind, No one here is innocent, and he had to agree. -- James S.a. Corey
His words were full of hope and threat.
Like the stars. -- James S.a. Corey
If you start feeling wonderful and powerful and like you've seen the face of God, you're having a euphoric attack. -- James S.a. Corey
Holden stopped next to the desk and turned around to look at the woman sitting on the couch. Graying hair, but good features and an athletic build. In a flophouse like this, that probably meant a prostitute reaching the end of her shelf life. -- James S.a. Corey
Naomi coughed. It was wet, painful sound, but the medical bay didn't seem concerned. The machine had a shitty bedside manner. -- James S.a. Corey
The messages he watched and sent out were a kind of prayer for him, though he wouldn't have said it that way. Something that brought peace and the illusion that what they were caught up in wasn't so massively bigger than their own individual wills and hopes and intentions. -- James S.a. Corey
The tube station that arrived from the port had six wide doors, which emptied to the casino floor. Miller accepted a drink from a tired-looking woman in a G-string and bared breasts and found a screen to stand at that afforded him a view of all six doors. -- James S.a. Corey
and the Mark Watney, out of Mars. -- James S.a. Corey
Mark Watney, out of Mars. -- James S.a. Corey
In the middle column, the colony ships she and her fleet had taken: the Bedyadat Jadida, out of Luna. The John Galt and the Mark Watney, out of Mars. The -- James S.a. Corey
My name is James Holden," he said, "and my ship, the Canterbury, was just destroyed by a warship with stealth technology and what appear to be parts stamped with Martian navy serial numbers. Data stream to follow. -- James S.a. Corey
If they had to transport black market human organs or drugs or sexbots or whatever was in those crates, he'd do it. Because he was scared. -- James S.a. Corey
Amusement and half pleasure, on their faces. Miller signed in and crawled through the awkward Ojino-Gouch-style airlock, seventy years out of date and hardly larger than -- James S.a. Corey
Most of them seem to want the whole thing to just go away so they can get on with their research. -- James S.a. Corey
In order to be heard by the oppressing class, one must speak as a member of it. Not only the language, but the diction. The accusation of tyranny, however well-founded in fact, is dismissed unless it is delivered in the manner that power recognizes as powerful. -- James S.a. Corey
The mech hadn't been designed for violence, but it was suited for it. That made her and it the same. -- James S.a. Corey
Societies around the system. With every letter -- James S.a. Corey
But Basia had come to view power as a precious and irreplaceable resource. Not something he'd ever needed to do in the age of readily available fusion. -- James S.a. Corey
If all that was possible, everything was. -- James S.a. Corey
He wore his age like a statement that fighting the ravages of time and mortality was beneath his notice. -- James S.a. Corey
Rebecca Byers, the comm officer on duty, could have been bred from a shark and a hatchet. -- James S.a. Corey
The moral high ground is a lovely place. It won't stop a missile, though. It won't alter the trajectory of a gauss round. -- James S.a. Corey
She'd been attacked. Just after she came to the Belt. She was seeing that it didn't happen twice."
"Attacked," Miller said, parsing the man's tone of voice. "Raped?"
"I didn't ask. -- James S.a. Corey
I didn't switch sides. I stopped playing. -- James S.a. Corey
He cut the connection before she could answer. Long goodbyes weren't anyone's strong suit. -- James S.a. Corey
The joke was that Ceres didn't have laws - it had police. -- James S.a. Corey
Mr. Dowd," Miller said. "What I am about to do to you is literally the only bright spot in my day. If you could see your way clear to resisting arrest, I'd really appreciate it." "Harry? -- James S.a. Corey
We both know that killing someone doesn't make you admirable. I'm not about to forget this. I just hope you have enough soul left that what you've done still bothers you." The recording ended, and Bull smiled at the blank screen wearily. "Every time," he told the hand terminal. "And next time too. -- James S.a. Corey
Johnson and I sent Holden to mediate because he was the perfect person to show what a clusterfuck it was out there. How ugly it could be. -- James S.a. Corey
Husband and wife seems like a less interesting and committed relationship than Holden and Naomi -- James S.a. Corey
Basia floated next to the gunner's seat watching the hateful math spool out across the screen. She -- James S.a. Corey
I've got a bunch of plumbers with rifles I could put on a shuttle. The bridge went quiet. -- James S.a. Corey
I found a big crate with the letters MAP on the side. According to the manifest, it stands for 'Mobile Assault Package.' Apparently navy-speak for a big box of guns, -- James S.a. Corey
There were two sides fighting - that was true enough - but they weren't the inner planets versus the Belters. They were the people who thought it was a good idea to kill people who looked or acted differently against the people who didn't. -- James S.a. Corey
His brows knotted just a bit. He knew that she knew. Because of course he did. Players at their level didn't deceive each other. They won even though their opponents knew exactly what was happening. Just like he was winning against her right now. -- James S.a. Corey
Fayez whistled low. That is not dead which can eternal lie. Or, y'know, whatever. -- James S.a. Corey
There aren't any new starts," Bobbie said. "All the new ones pack the old ones along with them. If we ever really started fresh, it'd mean not having a history anymore. I don't know how to do that. -- James S.a. Corey
Time took her strength but it gave her power in exchange. It was a fair trade. She -- James S.a. Corey
Bobbie ignored the macho posturing. Everyone dealt with pre-combat jitters in their own way. Bobbie preferred obsessive list making. But flexing and threats were good too. -- James S.a. Corey
You'll have something to ride on that doesn't make your cock look as small as that gaudy turd. -- James S.a. Corey
Saying 'no problem' is a sure sign that everything is about to go terribly wrong," Han said. -- James S.a. Corey
Outside, the city glowed, the violence and bustle made calm and beautiful by even such a small distance. The wail of the sirens and angry blat of the security alerts became a kind of music there, transformed by the mystical act of passing above waves. -- James S.a. Corey
The dog-faced, small-cocked, hypocrite bastard son of a weasel and a whore bowed and escorted his wife from the house. -- James S.a. Corey
Naomi shrugged with her hands, then started pulling her hair behind her head and tying it up with a red elastic band. -- James S.a. Corey
Holden punched the comm system on the wall. "Well, crew, welcome aboard the gas freighter Rocinante." "What -- James S.a. Corey
Computers, it seemed, could be programmed to do almost anything but sense when someone was up to no good. -- James S.a. Corey
She preferred the times when she could pretend that she was in a gravity well to the little reminders that she was the puppet of acceleration and inertia. -- James S.a. Corey
The best find hadn't been in the bunker, though. The garage had a half-dozen unused but well-maintained bicycles, complete with saddlebags. Even -- James S.a. Corey
A person can fail the people they love just by being who they are. -- James S.a. Corey
Afterward he collapsed onto the deck and gave in to the shakes. Naomi climbed into her couch and sobbed. It was the first time Holden had ever seen her cry. -- James S.a. Corey
It's herding kittens. If kittens had a lot of guns and an overdose of neo-Libertarian property theory. -- James S.a. Corey
Nothing ever killed more people than being afraid to look like a sissy. -- James S.a. Corey
His parents had raised him to believe that sex was something you did in private not because it was embarrassing, but because it was intimate. -- James S.a. Corey
This is Detective Miller. He died when Eros hit Venus and now he's a puppet of the protomolecule."
"Semi-autonomous," the alien said.
"Pleased to meet you."
"Likewise. -- James S.a. Corey
Have you ever known anyone this wealthy to go to jail? Or even be prosecuted? This guy could probably walk in here and shoot you in the face on a live newsfeed and get away with it. -- James S.a. Corey
I'll go be a revolutionary for a while, I guess." "Earthman's -- James S.a. Corey
High-functioning sociopaths, -- James S.a. Corey
I think we need to leave now," Holden said, fear making the words come fast. "Like now now. Not later now. -- James S.a. Corey
But, like so many things in life, when you come to the spot where you're supposed to do the rituals, you do them. -- James S.a. Corey
That man could take a visitation from God with thirty underdressed angels announcing that sex was okay after all and make it seem vaguely depressing. -- James S.a. Corey
Five hours later, the government of Ceres collapsed. -- James S.a. Corey
Since this used to be a Martian ship, I thought maybe you'd have reloads that would fit our racks." "Sure," Captain Tseng said without a moment's hesitation. "I'll have the destroyer Sally Ride pull alongside for munitions transfer. -- James S.a. Corey
Last man standing," Amos replied with another grin. "It's in my job description. -- James S.a. Corey
In Amos' experience the more dangerous any two people were, the more carefully polite their social interactions tended to be. -- James S.a. Corey
Things change, Red," Amos said, "you let us know. Because I'll still be happy to kill the shit out of her. -- James S.a. Corey
Hey," she said. "Hey." "So I have a thing." "Is it a thing I can fix?" Holden asked. "Point me at the thing. -- James S.a. Corey
What?" Holden said, a brief image of the asteroid sneaking up like a cartoon villain on the two circling warships popping into his head. "Yeah, -- James S.a. Corey
It's a war. Wars aren't like that." "Aren't like what?" Roberts said. "Aren't like stories about wars," Vandercaust answered solemnly. "Stories about wars come after. -- James S.a. Corey
We don't have permission to kill him," Bull said. "A finger slips, think we can get forgiveness?" "Probably. -- James S.a. Corey
No fame and glory for you, Cortez. Montezuma wasn't impressed by your fire stick this time." "Everything -- James S.a. Corey
First mutiny?" Naomi said.
"Yeah. It's not really something I do."
"It gets easier. -- James S.a. Corey
Every empire grows until its reach exceeds its grasp. -- James S.a. Corey
Some things were secret even after you told them. -- James S.a. Corey
That's your plan?" Holden said, incredulity in his voice. "Go collect some police bribes?" Across the restaurant, a prostitute in a red nightgown yawned prodigiously; the john across the table from her frowned. -- James S.a. Corey
The detective had been watching the video of Julie Mao's fight with her captors over and over again while they'd waited on Naomi and Amos to finish their work. It gave Holden the disquieting feeling that Miller was storing the footage in his head. Fuel for something he planned to do later. -- James S.a. Corey
Holden considered ordering her to button up her helmet, then shrugged. She was old enough to decide for herself the relative risks and rewards of eating during a battle. -- James S.a. Corey
There is no review process, Doc. This isn't a government thing. Hell, it's not even a business. It's just us monkeys flying fast and tryin' t keep our butts out of the engine plume. -- James S.a. Corey
This is as good as it gets. Can't expect everyone to be on the same page. We're still humans after all. Some percentage of us are always going to be assholes. -- James S.a. Corey
It was a mating dance only slightly more dignified than presenting like a mandrill, but endearing in its own fashion. -- James S.a. Corey
Humanity hadn't changed, but it had. The venality and the nobility, the cruelty and the grace. They were all still there. It was just the particulars he felt shifting away from under him. -- James S.a. Corey
She tried to scream once, but with significant portions of her larynx already compromised, what she managed was more of a powerful, wet exhalation. -- James S.a. Corey
It was like solving a complex math puzzle without any promise that an optimal solution existed. -- James S.a. Corey
I don't believe war ever does. It's a madness that's in our nature. Sometimes it recurs; sometimes it subsides." "Sounds like a disease." "The herpes simplex of the species? -- James S.a. Corey
If you wanted kids, I hope you have some sperm in a bank someplace, because all your little soldiers have two heads now. Miller -- James S.a. Corey
And somehow, that changed everything about sex. The movements might all be the same, but the desire to communicate affection rather than demonstrate prowess changed what everything meant. -- James S.a. Corey
Looking back through history, there are a lot more men who thought they were Alexander the Great than men who actually were. -- James S.a. Corey
Shift in language is shift in consciousness, yeah," Josep -- James S.a. Corey
He almost blacks out again, but he's not sure if it's the stroke or the thrust gravity. He's pretty sure driving blood pressure higher while having a stroke is considered poor form. -- James S.a. Corey
Hell, as long as he was fantasizing, he threw in Naomi walking over to his hammock with a couple of fruity-looking drinks in her hands. She ruined it by talking. "This is our stop," she said. -- James S.a. Corey
It was less fun being the chosen one and prophet when the gods were violent and capricious and their spokesman was insane and powerless. -- James S.a. Corey
People. No matter where he went, no matter what he did, it was all still people. Kelsey -- James S.a. Corey
It was a small place with bulbs of alcohol, chocolate, coffee, and tea all set with temperature controls in the nipple, so the uniformly tepid drinks could come out anywhere from almost boiling to just this side of ice. The -- James S.a. Corey
Some things stayed secrets even when you told them. -- James S.a. Corey
Kings were always the last to feel the famine. That -- James S.a. Corey
I can't fight pirates without coffee. -- James S.a. Corey
His smile was curious and as serene as a well-fed predator. -- James S.a. Corey
Her legs were gone, lost in the tangle of dark alien webs; she reminded Miller of a mermaid who had traded her fins for a space station. Her eyes were closed, but he could see them shifting and dancing under the lids. And she was breathing. -- James S.a. Corey
You're the predator right up until you're prey. -- James S.a. Corey
Sure," Holden said. "I just needed to feel sorry for myself for a minute. Let's go get killed by the mafia." He -- James S.a. Corey
You want a shadow, you got to have light and something to get in its way. -- James S.a. Corey
My love is a pure love," Alex said with a grin. "I wouldn't sully it by actually, you know, doin' anything about it." "The kind poets write about, then. -- James S.a. Corey
Han had been in a thousand places like it, all across the galaxy. Some had been as large as star systems, others as small as a back room in a cantina. They were the niches of the universe ... They were violent places, and they were joyful, and they didn't last. -- James S.a. Corey
Really?" Ip said, leaning forward. Her knee pressed against Alex's in a way that was absolutely innocent. Unless it wasn't, in which case it absolutely wasn't. "Never -- James S.a. Corey
You're in charge now. Act like it. "Blowing -- James S.a. Corey
What are you going to do?" "The same thing as always. Try to keep civilization from blowing up while the children are in it. -- James S.a. Corey
The massive radiation exposure had failed to give him superpowers. -- James S.a. Corey
Murtry swung first, so technically, that was self-defense. And if I'd wanted him dead, don't you think he'd be dead? It's not like I quit hitting him because I was tired. -- James S.a. Corey
So how did you wind up joining the Rebellion?"
"An old guy and a kid were looking for a ride and I needed the money," Han said. "After that, it was just bad luck. -- James S.a. Corey
Realizing you've got shit on your fingers is the first step toward washing your hands. -- James S.a. Corey
He'd gotten a botany internship thinking that he could use it to grow illicit, untaxed marijuana only to discover that every third botany intern had come in with the same plan. -- James S.a. Corey
She noticed Amos watching her. He had a dopey grin on his face.
"Seriously. Now?" she said. "We're talking about your captain going off to his death, and all that's going through your head right now is 'Ooh, boobies! -- James S.a. Corey
Tell me everything it explains, he said when he could remember how to speak. Being forced to move moist flaps of meat in order to form the words felt sensual and obscene. -- James S.a. Corey
When we go, go fast. Stop for nothing. Maximum aggression wins the day here. -- James S.a. Corey
And no offense, but it does smell like a squirrel crawled up your ass and died there. -- James S.a. Corey
Nothing was normal yet, and so nothing was strange. -- James S.a. Corey
I'm sorry you lost the suit,' he said.
She shrugged.
'At this point, it was mostly a metaphor anyway,' she said ... -- James S.a. Corey
I'm a long-flight pilot. Pushing a little bubble of air-filled metal across an ocean of nothing is what I was born to do. -- James S.a. Corey
He is, however," Amos continued, "keeping a constant rail gun lock on the Israel's reactor."
Holden ran his fingers through his hair. "So not too generous, then."
"Say pretty please, but carry a one-kilo slug of tungsten accelerated to a detectable percentage of c. -- James S.a. Corey
Yes, you're in charge. That makes me XO, and it's the XO's job to tell the captain when he's being an idiot. You're being an idiot, sir. -- James S.a. Corey
Cap," Amos said with a grin. "Anything that kills me has already killed everyone else. I was born to be the last man standing. You can count on it." The -- James S.a. Corey
Cioran, bureaucratic heart of the Empire. Or if not heart, kidney. Maybe small bowel. -- James S.a. Corey
That's what peace is, right? Postponing the conflict until the thing you were fighting over doesn't matter. -- James S.a. Corey
Sure, humans had invaded an extra-dimensional space with wormholes to points scattered across the galaxy, but they'd remembered to bring ferns. -- James S.a. Corey
Great men, they're not like you or me. They have other needs. Other rhythms. It's what sets them apart. But sometimes they go so far into the void we lose sight of them. They lose sight of us. -- James S.a. Corey
Soren's smirk was of the psychic variety; his face didn't change at all. -- James S.a. Corey
Anyone can kill a planet from orbit," Holden replied. "You don't even need bombs. Just push anvils out the airlock. That thing out there could kill ... Shit. Anything. -- James S.a. Corey
Null g always made him think of drowned people. -- James S.a. Corey
Nothing wrong with a little optimism, long as it doesn't set policy ... -- James S.a. Corey
Wars aren't like that." "Aren't like what?" Roberts said. "Aren't like stories about wars," Vandercaust -- James S.a. Corey
First off, get your shit together. Panic doesn't help. It never helps. Deep breaths, figure this out, make the right moves. Fear is the mind-killer. Ha. Geek. -- James S.a. Corey
There was justice to be had. He just couldn't afford it. -- James S.a. Corey
Well," Han said with a sigh, "we've gone from no-plan to stupid-plan. That's progress of a sort. -- James S.a. Corey
Boarding a ship was one of the riskiest maneuvers in naval combat. It was basically a race between the boarders rushing to the engine room and the collective will of those who had their fingers on the self-destruct button. -- James S.a. Corey
It was strange how a person could be so vitally important in your life, and yet you had nothing to say to them when they weren't sharing the same air. -- James S.a. Corey
They could address everything else and still not solve the problem. He was always proud of her when she said that. A liberal arts background was a hard thing to overcome, but she was doing great. -- James S.a. Corey
Fayez was a good scientist and a friend, but his habit of making fun of everything and derailing anything serious for the sake of humor also made him less useful than he should have been. -- James S.a. Corey
The enemy of my enemy is my friend? That's bullshit. There are always more than two sides. Pretending it's only one or else the other is what let that sonofabitch carry so much weight in the OPA for as long as he did." "He -- James S.a. Corey
A soft hushing sound, like fingernails scratching down an endless sheet of paper. -- James S.a. Corey
She'd grown up in Martian gravity . She had to mass a hundred kilos at one g, easy. -- James S.a. Corey
History is made up of people recovering from the last disaster, -- James S.a. Corey
No one lived forever. But you fought for every minute you could get. Bought a little more with a lot of hard work. -- James S.a. Corey
Naomi had left her hair down, and it hid her face from him. -- James S.a. Corey
It was shocking to realize how much of investigation was just brute-force solutions. -- James S.a. Corey
How many captains of stolen ships did it take to equal one disgraced UN official? That could tie a courtroom up for a few decades. -- James S.a. Corey
Even on Earth, there were people with money, and then there were people with money. -- James S.a. Corey
Every now and then a green dot shifted to yellow. A soldier down, their armored suits detecting the injuries or death that rendered them combat ineffective. Combat ineffective. Such a nice euphemism for one of his kids bleeding out. -- James S.a. Corey
We're back up and commencing burn in thirty seconds unless someone says otherwise. Everybody get ready to weigh something. -- James S.a. Corey
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. -- James S.a. Corey
Amazing how much we've managed to do, considering how we're doing it all with jumped-up social primates and evolutionary behaviors from the Pleistocene. -- James S.a. Corey
He saw his coming death, and wasn't afraid of it anymore. He'd miss all the good stuff to follow, but he'd help make it happen. And a very good person loved him. It was more than most people got in a lifetime. -- James S.a. Corey
Well, crew, welcome aboard the gas freighter _Rocinante_.'
'What does that name even mean?' ...
'It means we need to go find some windmills -- James S.a. Corey
The structure echoed the greatest cathedrals of Earth and Mars, rising up through empty air and giving both thrust-gravity stability and glory to God. -- James S.a. Corey
You live in your own world, dear one." "I do," Arjun agreed, running his thumb across the hand terminal's screen. He looked up. "You don't mind, do you?" "I love you for it. Stay -- James S.a. Corey
Mentally filed the thought under horrifically inappropriate given the circumstances. -- James S.a. Corey
This is deep. Drowning deep. And you know what they say about going in after a drowning man, right? Sematimba -- James S.a. Corey
By not elaborating, he'd sort of told the truth. The fact was weirdly disturbing. -- James S.a. Corey
When you got right down to it, humans were still just curious monkeys. They still had to poke everything they found with a stick to see what it did. The -- James S.a. Corey
Because when you got right down to it, humans were still just curious monkeys. They still had to poke everything they found with a stick to see what it did. -- James S.a. Corey
I'm going to Tycho Station. There's someone there I ... trust." "Trust?" "Don't actively distrust." "Naomi think it's the right thing?" "I don't know. I didn't ask her. But I think so." "Close enough," Miller said. -- James S.a. Corey
Through millions of klicks of vacuum to hit a bull's-eye smaller than a mosquito's asshole. -- James S.a. Corey
Figure two-, three-hundred-kilometer-an-hour winds, lightning, torrential rains. You're far enough inland to avoid the three-kilometer-high tsunami." "Basic wrath of God package, minus drowning, -- James S.a. Corey
We don't want to get in a gunfight," Holden warned Amos as they began moving again. "Yeah," Amos said. "But if we're in one anyway, it'll be nice to have guns. -- James S.a. Corey
Show a human a closed door, and no matter how many open doors she finds, she'll be haunted by what might be behind it. -- James S.a. Corey
It takes something to stand out a little, and you can't swing a dead cat on Ganymede without hitting five botany PhDs. -- James S.a. Corey
the idea of trying to reconnect to humanity again filled him with the presentiment of exhaustion. -- James S.a. Corey
Downtime's easier to enjoy when I know it'll end. -- James S.a. Corey
Singh in computational biology held forth on her theory of the protomolecule as a Guzman-style quantum computer one night over dinner, and when Kibushi used the information without citing her, she snuck into the showers at the gymnasium and beat him to death with a ceramic workbench cap. -- James S.a. Corey
Apocalyptic explosions, dead reactors, terrorists, mass murder, death-slugs, and now a blindness plague. This is a terrible planet. We should not have come here. -- James S.a. Corey
What kind of half-assed apocalypse are they running down there?" Amos said. "Give 'em a break. It's their first. -- James S.a. Corey
Martian Congressional Republic Navy. -- James S.a. Corey
I could kill you with my hands, Marcus thought, and it was enough to evoke the smile that etiquette called for. -- James S.a. Corey
Miller slapped the magazine back into his gun and chambered a round. "I'm guessing there's a lot more people need to be shot before this is over," he -- James S.a. Corey
You've flown with us for twenty-five years, you like us, you've learned the patois. I bet you can order a beer and a hooker on any station in the Belt. -- James S.a. Corey
People want Inaros to be a hero, and so what he does, they interpret as heroism." "Even -- James S.a. Corey
Don't," Naomi said, letting him go, "pull your gun on anyone." "They have guns." "Guns plural. You have gun singular, which is why you will keep yours in your holster, or you'll do this by yourself." That's -- James S.a. Corey
What are you doing?" asked Naomi from behind him, not from his helmet speakers. She was standing there with her helmet off. Sweat plastered her thick black hair to her head and neck. -- James S.a. Corey
Wait!" she said. "What decompression did you use? My suit is an older model. It uses the version 5.1 video compression. Tell the tech that, and have them try it again. -- James S.a. Corey
His ability to appear to be listening lent him an air of gravity without the inconvenience of an opinion of his own. -- James S.a. Corey
Reputation never has very much to do with reality. -- James S.a. Corey
What the Earthers had discovered is that when people have nothing else to do, they have babies. -- James S.a. Corey
It seems to me the better question is whether there's any virtue in committing to a permanent and unexamined certainty. -- James S.a. Corey
Get killed when I'm not babysitting, Lieutenant Kelly barked. They -- James S.a. Corey
Optimism expressed as conservation of delta V. -- James S.a. Corey
I always thought that if you gave people all the information, they'd do the right thing, you know? Not always, maybe, but usually. More often than when they chose to do the wrong thing anyway. -- James S.a. Corey
He kind of wished he had a hat. -- James S.a. Corey
If you fuck with him after this, I will end every piece of you. -- James S.a. Corey
He hadn't done anything wrong, but the sense of being threatened and the experience of guilt were so closely related that it was hard to feel one without the other. When -- James S.a. Corey
Doesn't take much before we have to compromise ourselves, does it?" "Get born," Michio said, pulling -- James S.a. Corey
the lizard living at the base of her spine -- James S.a. Corey
Choosing to stand by while people kill each other is also an action, -- James S.a. Corey
palpable. Havelock shifted slightly, pushing himself higher in -- James S.a. Corey
I'm saying let's go see if we can find some horses or zebras before we start a unicorn hunt. -- James S.a. Corey
The last thing that made sense was to sit around, ogling girls in the park and -- James S.a. Corey
Get your nuts in your palms and head forward, boys. -- James S.a. Corey
He was a professional doing an unpleasant job. -- James S.a. Corey
Thing about civilization, it's what keeps people civil. You get rid of one, you can't count on the other. -- James S.a. Corey
There's a dignity in consequences. -- James S.a. Corey
You will be personally responsible for the single deadliest screwup in the history of humankind, and I'm on a ship with Jim fucking Holden, so the bar's not low." The -- James S.a. Corey
He would live to see humanity's spread to the stars. -- James S.a. Corey
There was a scuffle, and it got out of hand. Dawes, tell me you've never had something like it." "I've never had something like it," Dawes -- James S.a. Corey
We were full of righteous anger and dreams of vengeance when we got here, and a couple of blowjobs and hangovers later it's like nothing ever happened -- James S.a. Corey
It was astounding, Bobbie thought, how quickly humanity could go from What unimaginable intelligence fashioned these soul-wrenching wonders? to Well, since they're not here, can I have their stuff? -- James S.a. Corey
War without end. Well, -- James S.a. Corey
He found an electronics store and a teahouse and what on closer inspection turned out to be a very expensive brothel. -- James S.a. Corey
Someone just broke pretty much all of human civilization overnight." The -- James S.a. Corey
Naomi shook her head, blowing an exasperated raspberry at him. Her dark hair fell across her face -- James S.a. Corey
He was covered in blood. He was pretty sure it was all Butch's, but not a hundred percent. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, he missed things like getting shot. He -- James S.a. Corey
The pillow mashed into her abdomen like a ten-kilo sandbag, filling her mouth with the taste of stomach acid. -- James S.a. Corey
Good, because I don't use sex as a weapon," Bobbie said. "I use weapons as weapons. -- James S.a. Corey
They don't hate us," Bobbie said, her voice tired. "They're afraid of us." "Then why do they act like they hate us?" David's father said with something like triumph. "Because that's what fear looks like when it needs someplace to go." David's -- James S.a. Corey
Bobbie kept talking. "Seriously. Get me a gun, I'm a soldier. Get that suit for me, I'm a superhero. -- James S.a. Corey
Did he kill anyone?" Erich asked. When neither guard answered, he said, "Then he's still being polite. -- James S.a. Corey
I can get you some stimulants if you'd like, but there's no coffee." "Right," Holden said. "No coffee. This is a terrible, terrible planet. Show me how to make everyone better. -- James S.a. Corey
Taking the things that other people thought they deserved to keep was dangerous work. -- James S.a. Corey
The abyss above him shone with unflickering stars. One of the dots of light was Earth. He didn't know which one. -- James S.a. Corey
If life transcends death, then I will seek for you there. If not, then there too. -- James S.a. Corey
You're a tough guy, but I'm a nightmare wrapped in the apocalypse. -- James S.a. Corey
This is your house...If they don't respect you here, they won't respect you anywhere. -- James S.a. Corey
Bull had been around charisma before. The sense that some people had of moving through their lives in a cloud of likability or power. -- James S.a. Corey
and much of what she came to understand was that humans were domestic animals like dogs and cats. They responded poorly to threats and well to a gentle building of trust. -- James S.a. Corey
epicanthic fold. -- James S.a. Corey
He understood the flaw in that logic: if comforting them comforted him, maybe comforting him comforted them, and they could all drive the ship into a rock while they smiled at each other. -- James S.a. Corey
For a moment there, he'd had a vision of the two of them staggering back to the room together, then falling into bed. He'd have hated himself in the morning for taking advantage, but he'd still have done it. -- James S.a. Corey
I'm an engineer," Gareth said, spitting out the word so violently it gave him a degree of spin. "Did eight years on Tycho Station! I'm not going to get used like a fucking technician. -- James S.a. Corey
Eros supported a population of one and a half million, a little more than Ceres had in visitors at any given time. -- James S.a. Corey
Boy, everybody is just a fucking pile of fun right now, Amos said loudly. -- James S.a. Corey
Her eyes were sad and playful. He'd thought for so long that it was her soul and not just an accident of physiology that gave her that look of fettered joy. He'd been wrong. -- James S.a. Corey
Those kids? They're illegal, but they don't just vanish, not -- James S.a. Corey
They build stations inside of rocks for a reason," Naomi said. "Not so easy to force radiation through this many meters of rock." "I -- James S.a. Corey
He had given himself permission to be afraid. It made all the difference. -- James S.a. Corey
Maybe he should have rallied, risen to the occasion like the rest of them. The truth was the thought made him tired. Shaddid -- James S.a. Corey
If the medical bay could have raised its eyebrows and made judgmental little tsk-tsk sounds, it would have. Instead, -- James S.a. Corey
An idealist. The most dangerous kind of man there was. And -- James S.a. Corey
We're all traitors now." "Ha!" the old lady said. "Only if we lose. -- James S.a. Corey
He didn't think about raising his assault weapon; it was just there, coughing out return fire like an extension of his will. -- James S.a. Corey
The man starts wars all the fucking time, only this time, when I needed a little conflict? Now he's the fucking peacemaker. -- James S.a. Corey
It wasn't just the size of it. It was the idea that four generations of the smartest people in the solar system had been living and working here as they helped drag humanity into the outer planets almost through sheer force of will. Amos -- James S.a. Corey
He is my white whale, and I will hunt him to the end of time. -- James S.a. Corey
You know what I hate about you?" "My hat?" "That too," Holden said. "But mostly it's that I hate everything you say, but you're not always wrong. -- James S.a. Corey
Do you believe in the concept of forgiveness? In the possibility of redemption? In the value of every human life, no matter how tainted or corrupted?" "Fuck no," Bull said. "I think it is entirely possible to go so far into the red you can't ever balance the books." "Sounds -- James S.a. Corey
If the woman still had a soul, it had been pressed thin enough to see through. -- James S.a. Corey
But always there was the voice at the back of his head telling him that by joining the Rebellion he'd become less of a rebel than he'd ever been. Flying off to assault yet another impossibly well-defended Imperial stronghold. It was getting to be a bad habit. -- James S.a. Corey
All beautiful things should have just a little sorrow about them. Made them seem real. -- James S.a. Corey
Captain," Amos said with mock surprise. "Have you actually learned from your past? Is this a new thing you do now? -- James S.a. Corey
Now you're asking me to explain microwaves to a monkey. -- James S.a. Corey
Hopefully a preacher didn't need anyone murdered. -- James S.a. Corey
His name put in with the great traitors, con men, and self-aggrandizing egomaniacs of history. -- James S.a. Corey
It's probably full of vomit zombies," Holden finally said. "Want to go see?" said Miller. "Oh yeah," Holden said. -- James S.a. Corey
What did you do?" Fred asked. "There was a button," Holden said. "I pushed it." "Jesus Christ. That really is how you go through life, isn't it?" "But -- James S.a. Corey
It was a lot to hope for, but Holden was an unapologetic optimist. Give people the information they need. Trust them to do the right thing. He didn't know any other way to play it. Or -- James S.a. Corey
Right," Holden said. "No coffee. This is a terrible, terrible planet. -- James S.a. Corey
He's done what he said he'd do." She could feel the gentle provocation in his words, and it was what she needed. "He's done what he says he said. -- James S.a. Corey
If you don't have the data you need, play with the data you have, see if something comes out of it. -- James S.a. Corey
Basic problem solving. If you don't have the data you need, play with the data you have, see if something comes out of it. She'd -- James S.a. Corey
It didn't blow up last time," Han said. "Maybe it won't blow up this time, either. -- James S.a. Corey
She was going to see a world in the aftermath of utter disaster, but she would still see it. And the state of nature was always recovering from the last disaster. "Stop, -- James S.a. Corey
It's weird as tits on a bishop, but who knows if it means anything? They're -- James S.a. Corey
You get in its way, you get paved over. If you can find a way to live in the cracks, you can thrive anywhere. There were always cracks. -- James S.a. Corey
Why do I put up with your shit?" "Because," Amos said, starting to strip an assault rifle down to its component parts, "I'm the only one on the ship that can keep the coffee maker running. -- James S.a. Corey
My old partner was there. He got off too. Then he went back later. When it hit Venus. -- James S.a. Corey
We're not making any official statements, especially when James Holden's in the room. No offense, but your track record for blurting information at inopportune moments is the stuff of legend. -- James S.a. Corey
If the last few weeks had taught Han anything, it was that he didn't belong in the civilised part of her world. His place was in the bowels of the Falcon, or the pilot's seat. -- James S.a. Corey
Nothing better in the world than getting a job the day after your ass gets canned. -- James S.a. Corey
Against all evidence, I keep thinking the assholes are outliers. -- James S.a. Corey
Black hair draped down the side of her face. -- James S.a. Corey
How you spend your day is how you spend your life, -- James S.a. Corey
Fuck the Inners, and fuck their magic Jell-O ... Just wearing their fancy arm probably turns you into an asshole, -- James S.a. Corey
He'd been driven by his fear to become someone else. Someone who handled fear by turning it into violence. -- James S.a. Corey
Thing is, we're humans. We're tribal. More settled things are, the bigger your tribe is. All the people in your gang, or all the people in your country. All the ones on your planet. Then the churn comes, and the tribe gets small again. -- James S.a. Corey
Ren, her official second, was a Belter and, like all Belters, passionate about environmental control systems the way normal people were with sex or religion. -- James S.a. Corey
Desperate psychotic people do desperate psychotic things when they're exposed. I refuse to grant them immunity from exposure out of fear of their reaction. When you do, the desperate psychos wind up in charge. -- James S.a. Corey
And the moral high ground is a lovely place," Marwick said, as if he were agreeing. "It won't stop a missile, though. -- James S.a. Corey
The birds, on the other hand, were going crazy. They filled the air with chirps and trills and songs. It was probably sparrow for Holy shit, what's going on, we're all gonna die, but it sounded pretty. -- James S.a. Corey
Nothing lasted forever. Not peace. Not war. Nothing. -- James S.a. Corey
It was easy as keying in a door code. Somehow he felt that arming fusion bombs to detonate around him should have been more difficult. -- James S.a. Corey
His strike force stood around him, craning their necks, in awe of the massive emptiness all around. He was almost sorry to pull his attention back to the small, vaguely intimate necessities of violence. -- James S.a. Corey
He's using you as his external, aftermarket conscience. -- James S.a. Corey
All through human history, being a moral person and not being pulled into the dramatics and misbehavior of others had caused intelligent people grief. -- James S.a. Corey
The missionary lifted his hands in a gesture of harmlessness that went back to the African plains of the Pleistocene. I have no weapon; I seek no fight. I'm -- James S.a. Corey
More than once he'd wandered into a brothel and left only when they threw him out with an emptied account, a sore groin, and a prostate as dry as the Sahara desert. -- James S.a. Corey
It was like a bunch of lizards watching the World Cup. Politely put, they weren't sure what they were looking at. But -- James S.a. Corey
the devil has always lived in men when they reach too far, when they fail to ask if they should do something just because they can do it. -- James S.a. Corey
That's what it's come to, Miller thought, rubbing a hand across his chin. Pogroms after all. Cut off just a hundred more heads, just a thousand more heads, just ten thousand more heads, and then we'll be free. -- James S.a. Corey
The pachinko machines lit them blue and green and shrieked in artificial delight. -- James S.a. Corey
Holden always found it strangely disconcerting when an exaggerated Texas drawl came from someone his brain said should be speaking with Punjabi accents. And -- James S.a. Corey
The whole voting thing had seemed like such a good idea when he'd first brought it up. After losing his first vote, not so much. They'd all be dead in two days, so at least it probably wouldn't happen again. "If -- James S.a. Corey
now he was about to be killed because of yet another petty human with more power than sense. It didn't seem fair. -- James S.a. Corey
He wouldn't miss the planet, but he would miss the people. Just like always. -- James S.a. Corey
It felt like waking up over and over without falling sleep in between. -- James S.a. Corey
Catastrophe was just one part of what always happened. It was a prelude to what came next. -- James S.a. Corey
A woman's voice ululated on the sound system, somewhere between an Islamic call to prayer and orgasm with a drumbeat. -- James S.a. Corey
My life has become a single, ongoing revelation that I haven't been cynical enough." At -- James S.a. Corey
Theological anthropology is a lot simpler when humans are the only ones with souls. -- James S.a. Corey
Same here, Cap'n," Amos said. "I got a lot of past in my past. -- James S.a. Corey
Human violence as a kind of fractal - self-similar on all scales from bar fight to system-wide war. The buildup of insults and lost face that swelled over the course of an evening or a century. The shoving and shoving back, neither side sure they wanted to escalate and uncertain how to back down. -- James S.a. Corey
It's a simple complex system. That's the technical name for it. Because it's simple, it's prone to cascades, and because it's complex, you can't predict what's going to fail. Or how. It's computationally impossible. -- James S.a. Corey
Sleeping and waking lost their edges. Healing and being ill too. It was difficult if not impossible to draw a line between them. -- James S.a. Corey
The velocities and forces involved in anything at orbital altitudes were enough to kill a human with just the rounding error. At their speeds, the friction from air too thin to breathe would set them on fire. -- James S.a. Corey