Peter F. Hamilton Quotes

It was always a puzzle, given that he spent his days achieving nothing, that he had no time for anything.

Hindsight must surely be the most useless function of the human brain, torturing yourself over the unalterable past.

Some believe that we will eventually sink back to the more simple-minded creatures which we evolved out of and the planet will bring another mind forward." "Isn't that the opposite of evolution?" "Only from a single-species perspective. A planet's life is paramount. It is such a fragile rare event, it should be treasured and nurtured for the potential it brings forth. If that means abdicating our physical dominance for our successors, then that is what we will accept. Such a time is a long way in our future. In terms of evolution, we have only just begun such a journey.

I don't get it. There's nothing here. Send your invasion force halfway across the galaxy so they can build a five star ski resort? That's crazy.

The sun was boiling, the swaying was uncomfortable, the horse stank. She felt wonderful

Life alone is precious, but conscious thought is the greatest gift the universe offers.

It is the epitome of entropy, the final enemy of all things.

I doubt any system that won't reveal its purpose, that only offers promises of a better tomorrow.

Lawyers had abolished the simple concept of right and wrong, turning it into degrees of guilt.

war is the result of total irrationality combined with conflict of interest.

I've only been out a few days. I'd forgotten how fucking useless meat bodies are. There's barely enough neurones to run a walking routine, let alone something complicated like tying your shoelaces up. I've had to run an expanded mentality in the habitat's RI systems just to keep thinking properly; and that hardware isn't exactly young and frisky any more.

Kelly was starting to have serious second thoughts about the whole assignment. Like all war correspondents, she supposed. Being on the ground was very different to sitting in the office anticipating being on the ground. Especially with the appearance of that red cloud.

True life is the understanding and support of other people, of selflessness, of charity, of kindness.

killed fifteen men when I was in combat. Yeah, he was a nurse. Couldn't read the label on the medicine bottle.

It took eight generations of cousins marrying to produce you

As if we didn't have enough weapons already. But that's human nature, we've always got to go one better, to increase the terror another notch.

National and regional governments were committing vast resources into combating the biosphere breakdown. Social welfare, infrastructure administration, health care, and security - the fields government used to devote its efforts to - were all slowly being starved of tax money and sold off to private industry. It

That's a huge gamble." "We're long past the time for careful certainty.

He said that for wickedness to succeed all it takes is for decent people to do nothing.

Any sentient entity who has lived, has changed.

Ian chuckled. "You know what the world's greatest oxymoron is?" "Happily married," Sid said wearily.

Don't worry. The chaps train for civil disobedience suppression. We'll crack a few heads, chuck some of the would-be revolutionaries in jail, and the rest will slink off back to their hovels and drink themselves stupid all night. And if worse comes to worst, well, we've got all the guns, haven't we?

Ideology is a sick-soul-meme; it gnaws basic decency away until you can self-justify the most extreme acts as worthwhile to further the cause. Any cause.

rationalize that as something else

The balance is the penalty of being human: the danger of allowing yourself to feel. For this we walk a narrow path high above rocky ground. On one side we have the descent into animalism, on the other a godhead delusion. Both pulling at us, both tempting. But without these forces tugging at your psyche, stirring it into conflict, you can never love. They awaken us, you see, these warring sides, they arouse our passion.

How many twenty-second-century bureaucrats did it take to change a light panel?
We'll have a sub-committee meeting and get back to you with an estimate.

Interpretation though the filters of ideology has always been one of our race's curses.

The original castle back in Edinburgh was the seat of Scottish nationalism. It symbolized everything to the diehard believers. Despite all the changes and defeats they endured, the castle stood solid at the center of their capital. They waited for generations for the Scottish nation to be properly reborn after their Bonnie Prince was lost. There were times when the cause seemed impossible, or even cursed; they regained their independence from the English only to lose it again right away with the formation of Federal Europe.

So how big an interest have you been taking in the Pilgrimage?' 'Big. That idiot Ethan really could trigger the end of the galaxy. I'd have to move.' 'How terrible.

Always trust in proven survivors.

We spend most of our lives in relationships or bringing up children which are a product of relationships.

Once you've achieved everything, there is nothing left. You take out the core of being human: the striving.

Everybody in the GE used secondaries. It was part of the culture now; socially acceptable. There had been many attempts by the Brussels parliament to legislate against it, and the Tax Bureau certainly did its best. But of course, if a method had been found to clear up people's finances and put them on a hundred per cent legitimate, transparent basis, it would have worked for everyone, politicians and tax officials included.

Any species possessing this kind of knowledge base is best left unannoyed.

He had used drugs and nanonic supplements to compensate at first, then supplements became replacements, with bones exchanged for carbon-fibre struts. Electrical consumption supplanted food intake. The final transition was his skin, replacing the eczema-ridden epidermis with a smooth ochre silicon membrane. Warlow didn't need a spacesuit to work in the vacuum, he could survive for over three weeks without a power and oxygen recharge. His facial features had become purely cosmetic, a crude mannequin-like caricature of human physiognomy, although there was an inlet valve at the back of his throat for fluid intake. There was no hair, and he certainly didn't bother with clothes. Sex was something he lost in his fifties.

There will always be people treated badly, which I feel is basic human nature and difficult to eliminate.

The hostile force! The reasone the barrier was established. "Astrophysics, do we know what's causing that?"
"No, sir," Bruno said cheerfully. "Not a clue".

Thoale alone knows why suicides are so fond of jumping off cliffs and bridges; they wouldn't if they knew what that trip's like.

Ego had brought him to this point, that stupid refusal to quit the case, to simply do the job according to procedure and pick up the monthly salary transfer. Now look where it had brought him, sitting right next to a crapping great fusion bomb.

How they hell does it do that?

During the Trinity test of the very first atom bomb, Fermi wondered if the detonation would ignite the Earth's atmosphere. They just didn't know, you see. We think the quantum disruption won't propagate. If it does, then the whole universe gets converted into energy.

The universe was not built on integrity. In the face of weakness, force can and will triumph. All you can do is choose who wields that force. Us or the Starflyer.

Every Navy warship assigned to the Sol protection fleet flashed in towards Earth, knitting together in a defensive formation that extended out beyond lunar orbit. Weapons platforms that had spent decades stealthed in high orbit emerged to join the incredible array of firepower lining up on the Swarm. All over the planet, force fields powered up, shielding the remaining cities. Anyone outside an urban area was immediately teleported in to safety. The T-sphere itself was integrated into the defence organization, ready to ward off energy assaults against the planet by rearranging spacetime in a sharp curve.

Perfection," Inigo said, "is what we strive for; it is never what we should achieve. There is no such thing as utopia. Life by its nature is a struggle. Take that away and you take away any reason to exist.

The ubiquitous semi-sentient utility routine running in her macrocellular clusters responded immediately by unfolding a basic array of mental icons, slender lines of blue fairy light that superimposed themselves within her wobbly vision. She frowned. If she was reading their efficiency modes correctly, her biononics had

Justine watched two azure moons traverse the sparkling smear of Wall stars. They were in very strange orbits. And moving impossibly fast – actually accelerating. 'Oh my God,' she gasped. The Raiel's planet-sized DF machines were flying into new positions. 'The Raiel are getting ready for the last fight,' Ehasz said numbly. 'If they lose, that monster will consume the whole galaxy.

HR?'
'Human Resources.'
'In Brussels that kind of department is referred to as the Office for Personkind Enablement. Resources sounds like something you dig out of the ground.

It's not a god he worships, it's the devil.

You cannot impose ideologies on people who do not embrace it wholeheartedly.

Random Acts of Kindness," he said. "You need some in your life. Everybody does."
"No, I don't have much of a rak, but hey, this is the twenty-third century, you can get anything fixed if you have enough money.

Their electronics are still back in the Stone Age.

I believe that intelligence and rationality will always be primary no matter what shape sentient creatures take. To not think that would be to doubt the value of life itself.

Computers aren't smart, just fast. Garbage in, garbage out.

You've no idea how wonderful toilet paper is until it's taken away from you by an unfeeling universe. I think it's the defining characteristic of human civilization, the ability to manufacture something decent to wipe your ass on.

Most people who have failed miserably in life itself have one last resort left available to them, they become a politician.

This universe and all it is connected with will come to an end. Entropy carries us towards the inevitable omega point, that is why entropy exists.

This desperate act was inevitable. This act is a direct result of the oppression, both political and economic, imposed by our government. You crush hope. Yes, you! You destroy opportunity. You eradicate dignity. You do all that so you may maintain your filthy bigoted anti-democratic society. You leave the rest of us no choice. We are not allowed to protest.

Alien Affairs. Bad name I always thought, makes it sound like they're shagging them rather than investigating them.

I haven't yet written a book in a far-future utopia, where all bad things are eliminated, but it would be fun to do that one day and introduce some subversion.

This must be the sixth realm, the nameless void. Entropy is the only lord here. We will all bow down before him in the end.

Start taking money away from the privileged, and they can turn just as savage as any animal that gets shoved into Philippa's arena.

The biggest victory they can have is to change our lives. I am going to carry on exactly as before. Anything else is allowing them to win.

What's a lightwave ship?"
"UFO, basically."
"Cool," Angela said.

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Another religious fanatic to whom facts and reality took second place to dogma.

Let's see how long the rich can eat their money for

How you humans survive so much experience is something I shall never understand. To do so much and react to it all in the way you do is as much a curse as a blessing. You never take time to digest and appreciate what happens to you.

Are you sure it is trustworthy, Mellanie?"
"I'd be dead if it wasn't."
"yes. I suppose that does generate a respectable level of personsal confidence

The human race, for all our facets and our institutional stupidity, is something I believe in. I admire our diversity, our stubbornness. The dynamic of conflict is one of our greatest traits.

It is the others you must convince, the ignorant masses, yet paradoxically, they are the ones hardest for you to reach. Theirs are the minds which, thanks to circumstance, have set and hardened against new concepts and ideas from an early age.

Consciousness is just a window into time.

She couldn't organize an orgy in a brothel.

He never did understand why people admired or even collected art. The greatest human artist could never hope to match what nature did with a single flower.

Genuine scientific progress is a slow climb, which requires a stable society to support thinkers and theorists over many generations.

Three hundred and twenty-eight wormholes were opened in unison. They were small, all of them measuring a metre and a half wide. Just enough for a ten-megatonne warhead to pass through. The wormholes closed.

Think of it as an eight-dimensional onion.' Justine straightened her back and gave her father an exasperated look. 'Thanks, Dad. That's helpful. I always think in those terms, it really helps a lot.

Societies only have waste products while acquiring fresh raw material remains a cheaper option than recycling.

We're on Earth, now, remember. You can do anything you want here as long as you've got money.