Dan Simmons

All of our lives are governed by a certain degree of faith in bullshit.

Pain and darkness have been our lot since the Fall of Man. But there must be some hope that we can rise to a higher level ... that consciousness can evolve to a plane more benevolent than its counterpoint of a universe hardwired to indifference.

All those before us have gone into the darkness without assurance of logic fact or persuasive theory, with only a slender thread of hope or the all too shakable convinction of faith. And if they have been able to sustain that slim hope in the face of darkness, then so must I.

All those before us have gone into the darkness without assurance of logic or fact or persuasive theory, with only a slender thread of hope or all too shakable convention of faith. And they have been able to sustain that slim hope in the face of darkness, then so must I.

The past is dead and buried. But I know now that buried things have a way of rising to the surface when one least expects them to.

She [Beatrice] alone was still real for him, still implied meaning in the world, and beauty. Her nature became his landmark - what Melville would call, with more sobriety than we can now muster, his Greenwich Standard ...

Words bend our thinking to infinite paths of self-delusion, and the fact that we spend most of our mental lives in brain mansions built of words means that we lack the objectivity necessary to see the terrible distortion of reality which language brings. Example: the Chinese pictogram for __ntegrity_ is a two-part symbol of a man literally standing next to his word. So far, so good. But what does the Late English word __onesty_ mean? Or __otherland_? Or __rogress_? Or __emocracy_? Or __eauty_? But even in our self-deception, we become gods.

To see and feel one's beloved naked for the first time is one of life's pure, irreducible epiphanies. If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include that truth of contact or be forever hollow. To make love to the one true person who deserves that love is one of the few absolute rewards of being a human being, balancing all of the pain, loss, awkwardness, loneliness, idiocy, compromise, and clumsiness that go with the human condition. To make love to the right person makes up for a lot of mistakes.

in Theo _ quiet, efficient Theo _ to get him through the morning. Trusting in luck to get him through the day. Trusting in the drinking at Cicero__ to get him through the night. Trusting in the unimportance of his posting to get him through life.

The words sounded like a mournful incantation.

... you "met" this Moneta ... or whatever her real name is ... in her past but your future ... in a meeting that's still to come

In such seconds of decision entire futures are made

No lifetime is long enough for those who wish to create, Raul. Or for those who simply wish to understand themselves and their lives. It is, perhaps, the curse of being human, but also a blessing.

Its hard to die. Harder to live

Who are you, Hockenberry, to thwart Fate and defy the Will of the Gods?I am me, Thomas Hockenberry. I am fed up with these power-addled thugs who call themselves gods.

There would be no more offerings. Not this day. Not any day. Humankind had suffered enough for its love of gods, its long search for God. He thought of the many centuries in which his people, the Jews, had negotiated with God, complaining, bickering, decrying the unfairness of things but always - always - returning to obedience at whatever the cost. Generations dying in the ovens of hatred. Future generations scarred by the cold fires of radiation and renewed hatred.

I wish we had the technology to fight God on an equal basis. To beard him in his den. To fight back for all of the injustices heaped on humanity. To allow him to alter his smug arrogance or be blown to hell.

But, Dad_ She hesitated. __t will mean raising me all over again. It means suffering through my childhood for a third time. No parent should be asked to do that.__ol managed a smile. __o parent would refuse that, Rachel.