Becky Chambers Quotes

The truth is, Rosemary, that you are capable of anything. Good or bad. You always have been, and you always will be. Given the right push, you, too, could do horrible things. That darkness exists within all of us. You think every soldier who picked up a cutter gun was a bad person? No. She was just doing what the soldier next to her was doing, who was doing what the soldier next to her was doing, and so on and so on. And I bet most of them - not all, but most - who made it through the war spent a long time after trying to understand what they'd done. Wondering how they ever could have done it in the first place. Wondering when killing became so comfortable.

You are all desperate for purpose, even though you don't have one. You're animals, and animals don't have a purpose. Animals just are. And there are a lot of intelligent - sentient, maybe - animals out there who don't have a problem with that. They just go on breathing and mating and eating each other without a second thought. But the animals like you - the ones who make tools and build cities and itch to explore, you all share a need for purpose. For reason . That thinking worked well for you, once.

Ninety percent of all problems are caused by people being assholes."
"What causes the other ten percent?" asked Kizzy.
"Natural disasters," said Nib.

The ache to return to a time long gone was almost worse than fear.

Perhaps the most crucial stage is that of 'intraspecies chaos.' This is the proving ground, the awkward adolescence when a species either learns to come together on a global scale, or dissolves into squabbling factions doomed to extinction, whether through war or ecological disasters too great to tackle divided.

Such a quintessentially Human thing, to express sorrow through apology.

Tea was a moody drink.

There are few better ways to get to know how a species thinks than to learn their art.

Speaking of Aeluons," Sissix said. "I am dying to know where out captain is." She turned toward the vox. "Hey, Lovey."
"Nope," Lovey said.
Sissix and Rosemary exchanged amused looks. "Nope?" Sissix said.
"You heard me. No way."
"Please? You don't have to say what they're doing, just tell me where - "
"Oh, no! I seem to have a…circuit…problem. I can't talk to you anymore." The vox switched off.

The planet was beautiful. The planet was horrible. The planet was full of people, and they were beautiful and horrible, too.

He did not run from his grief, nor did he deny its existence. He could study his grief from a distance, like a scientist observing animals. He embraced it, accepted it, acknowledged that it would never go away. It was as much a part of him as any pleasant feeling. Perhaps even more so.

There was a nebula there, an explosion of dust and light, the fiery corpse of an ancient giant. Within the gaseous folds slept clusters of unborn stars, shining softly. She took inventory of her body. She felt her breath, her blood, the ties binding it together. Every piece, down to the last atom, had been made out here, flung through the open in a moment of violence, until they had swirled round and round, churning, and coalescing, becoming heavy, weighing each other down, but not any more. The pieces were floating free now. They had returned home.

I can wait for the galaxy outside to get a little kinder.

She wished someone would give her that sort of attention on a whim. She wished she were confident enough to give it back.

Most sapients confuse working hard with being miserable.

Ohan, as your doctor, I have to remind you that your body has only had to digest nutrient paste for some time, adopting other foods will take some adjustment.' His cheeks puffed wide. 'But as your - as your friend, there is no way I'd rather spend my afternoon than cooking a meal for you. With you, even, if you'd like.

I've never been good with people. I've always preferred my lab. I like data. Data is consistent, it's steady, it's easy to understand. With data, you always know what the answer is.

With a terrible silence, the sky ripped open.

It swallowed them.

Rosemary looked out the window, and realised that she'd never really seen the colour black before.

We are all made from chromosomes and DNA, which themselves are made from a select handful of key elements. We all require a steady intake of water and oxygen to survive (though in varying quantities). We all need food. We all buckle under atmospheres too thick or gravitational fields too strong. We all die in freezing cold or burning heat. We all die, full stop.

It is difficult to give thought to the stars when the ground is swallowing you up.

To some Humans, the promise of a patch land was worth any effort. It was an oddly predictable sort of behavior. Humans had a long, storied history of forcing their way into places where they didn't belong.

When the world you know is out of reach, nothing is more welcome than a measurable reminder that it still exists.

They were reminders of what a fragile thing it was to be alive.

The thing is, a lot of laws are stupid, too, and they don't always keep people out of danger.

Mistakes mean progress.

I am seventy-nine years old. If I want dessert twice ... I get dessert twice.

She would never, ever understand the idea that a child, especially an infant, was of more value than an adult who had already gained all the skills needed to benefit the community. The death of potential was somehow worse than a loss of achievement and knowledge was something she had never been able to wrap her brain around.

The laughing, snuggling heap on the ground was her baseline.

Life is terrifying. None of us have a rule book. None of us know what we're doing here. So, the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it. If you believe you have control, then you believe you're at the top. And if you're at the top, then people who aren't like you... well, they've got to be somewhere lower, right? Every species does this. Does it again and again and again. Doesn't matter if they do it to themselves, or another species, or someone they created.

I was four. _New and somewhat interesting_ applied to about ninety percent of my day, in everything from the development of a scab, to a cartoon I'd never seen, to an unexpected flavour of juice at lunch. It's difficult to assign value to discovery when you haven't sorted out the parameters of reality yet.

We celebrate the tree that stretches to the sky, but it is the ground we should ultimately thank.

The very fact we use the term "cold-blooded" as a synonym for "heartless" should tell you something about the innate bias we primates hold against reptiles. Do not judge other species by your own social norms.

Perhaps stars were supposed to be viewed from the ground.

A moth was a caterpillar, once, but it no longer is a caterpillar. It cannot break itself back down, cannot metamorphose in reverse. To try to eat leaves again would mean starvation. Crawling back into the husk would provide no shelter. It is a paradox -- the impossibility of reclaiming that which lies behind, housed within a form comprised entirely of the repurposed pieces of that same past. We exist where we begin, yet to remain there is death... I could not have predicted each version of me that I shifted into, but through my history, one constant has always remained true: change itself... I did not know who she was, the one waiting for me to start moving toward her. I was curious about her, all the same. I was eager to meet her.

We are the wealthiest species alive today. We want for nothing. Without us, there would be no tunnels, no ambi, no galactic map. But we achieved these things through subjugation. Violence. We destroyed entire worlds - entire species. It took a galactic war to stop us. We learned. We apologized. We changed. But we can't give back the things we took. We're still benefiting from them, and others are still suffering from actions centuries old. So, are we worthy? We, who give so much only because we took so much?

Pairs are not inventors. They are too unfocused, too short-lived. Good for Navigating and discussion theories, but bad at building. Building takes many, many mistakes. Pairs do not like mistakes. They like staring out windows. But Solitary like mistakes. Mistakes mean progress. We make good things. Great things.

Life is terrifying. None of us have rule book. None of us know what we're doing here. So, the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it. If you believe you have control, then you believe you're at the top. And if you're at the top, then people who aren't like you … well, they've got to be somewhere lower, right? Every species does this. Does it again and again and again. Doesn't matter if they do it to themselves, or another species, or someone they created.' She jutted her chin toward Tak. 'You studied history. You know this. Everybody's history is one long slog of all the horrible shit we've done to each other.

They'd strapped themselves into this explosive hunk of scrap and aimed for the sky. How was this a good idea? How had anyone ever thought this was a good idea?

What do your crazy speciests do?" Kizzy asked.
Sissix shrugged. "Live on gated farms and have private orgies."
"How is that any different than what the rest of you do?"
"We don't have gates and anybody can come to our orgies.

Just because someone goes away doesn't mean you stop loving them.

As you said, he had everything. That made him feel safe and powerful. People can do terrible things when they feel safe and powerful.

Tweaking your body , it's all about trying to make your physical self fit with who you are inside

This is so fucking Human of you. Lie back and let the galaxy do whatever it wants, because you're too guilty about how badly you fucked up your own species to ever take initiative.

Incident report." That sounds so . . . I don't know.' 'Inadequate?' 'No kidding. I like what Kizzy called it better.' 'What was that?' 'A "monstro clusterfuck."' Ashby laughed dryly. 'I doubt they have a form for that,' he said.

Nobody should be alone," Sissix said. "Being alone and untouched...there's no punishment worse than that. And she's done nothing wrong. She's just different.

I'll never understand how the rest of you expect brand-new adults to be able to teach kids how to be people.

It was hard to play it cool when you wore your heart on your face.

We hail from systems that remained self-contained for billions of years, with evolutionary clocks that all began at different times. How is it possible that when meeting our galactic neighbours for the first time, we are all instantly reminded of creatures back home - or in some cases, of ourselves?

I cannot wait for her to stop being a teenager." "I can," Nib said. "Do you know how impossible it's going to be to boss her around when she's twenty?

Tresha. It was the thankful, humble, vulnerable feeling that came after someone saw a truth in you, something they had discovered just by watching, something that you did not admit often to yourself.

Humans wasted so much time being redundant.

Rarely in history had things turned out well for people who chose to lock themselves away

Because people are assholes," said Bear, dutifully keeping his head down. "Ninety percent of all problems are caused by people being assholes.

You could live your whole life in one of those cities and never know how ugly it was somewhere else.

He was not a prisoner of those memories. He was their warden.

Do you know Aandrisk hand speak?' Rosemary asked. Kizzy glanced up from the lock of hair she was braiding. 'Not really. Sis taught me a couple of 'em. Just basic stuff. "Hello." "Thanks." "I enjoy your company but I don't want to have sex.

Sometimes the very best thing we can do is walk away.

If I ask what I'm asking only of people who agree with me at the outset, with whom I already share a dream and a language, then there's no point in asking at all.

No good can come from a species at war with itself.

How else could you explain a sapient species that had overpopulated itself to the point of environmental collapse? This was a people that had coupled themselves stupid.

He no longer felt helplessness. He felt powerful. And that was what scared him.

Perhaps the ache of homesickness was a fair price to pay for having so many good people in her life.

...sometimes we go, and we try, and we suffer, and despite it all, we learn nothing. Sometimes we are left with more questions than when we started. Sometimes we do harm, despite our best efforts. We are human. We are fragile.

There were two things about the plan that worried Sidra: the breach of Pepper's privacy, and the part that could kill Sidra if she did it wrong. The rest of it was easy. They

You studied history. You know this. Everybody's history is one long slog of all the horrible shit we've done to each other.' 'It's

The enhanced call us misfits - people who don't fir their intended purpose. So maybe you're a misfit too. Doesn't mean you're not deserving. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be here.

Despite the differences between our species and cultures, there is an order that we all share. The development of a civilization is a scripted event. Minds join together to create new technologies, on its own against threats from the outside, that civilization crumbles.