Quotes from Stephen Baxter

it best to worry about the little things. Things that can be helped by being worried about. Such as the making of clam chowder, and giving you a coffee. The bigger stuff, well, you

National Response Scenarios

Zhoi nodded. 'Puny Yahweh.' Mel Tash remembered Charlie Marlowe's facetious conversation – on Blink Day itself? She'd used those words then. And she'd repeated the phrase in many conversations and broadcasts since. But Yamanaka said now, 'It would help us all greatly if the Astronomer Royal did not utter those words publicly again. Not on my watch anyhow. Nothing good ever came from provocation . . . I leave that with you.

Fortasse accipio oratio stridens vestri. Sum Quintus Fabius, centurio navis stellae 'Malleus Jesu.' Quid estis, quid agitis in hac provincia? Et quid est mixti lingua vestri? Germanicus est? Non dubito quin vos ex Germaniae Exteriorae. Cognovi de genus vestri prius. Bene? Quam respondebitis mihi?

We seem to be young, in a very old Galaxy. We're like kids tiptoeing through a ruined mansion.

When you get close enough to someone you're never really alone again.

In the Vortex that lies beyond time and space tumbled a police box that was not a police box.

The past is a distraction, a source of envy, enmity, bitterness. Only the present matters, for only in the present can we shape the future. Cut loose the past; it is dead weight. Let the Extirpation continue. Let it never end.

Per ardua ad astra. Through adversity to the stars.

We could try the Turin test," said Lobsang. "Oh, machines have been able to pass the Turing test for years." "No, the Turin test. We both pray for an hour, and see if God can tell the difference.

And there's no such thing as too much back-up.

An ability to believe in things that weren't true was a powerful tool.

Sometimes people say that we're living in the future, and time's up for science fiction, but I think that never will be, because science fiction really isn't about the future. It's about change and present-day concerns

Every door I pass is one way. So I may as well look around, and see what there is beyond the next door, and the next.

Two damaged people, thrown together in a hostile world, doing their best. What else was there to life, in the end?

We're going to bollocks up our second chance at Eden, even before the paint has dried.

We ought to call ourselves Homo clamorans . Noisemaking man.

A brief life burns brightly.

I have a vision of a Galaxy overrun by mankind from Core to rim. Of four hundred billion stars each enslaved to the rhythm of Earth's day, Earth's year. I have a vision of a trillion planets pulsing to the beat of a human heart.

our citizens must be protected, even from being dumb, which is not a crime.

Wow. Pioneers with ice-cream." Joshua felt motivated to defend his home. "Well, it doesn't have to be like the Donner Party, Sally-

He took refuge in the concept that sometimes slowest is the fastest in the end.

Imagine God inside your computer, your phone, everyone else's computer. Imagine someone who almost is the Black Corporation, with all its power and riches and reach. And who, despite all this, seems pretty sane and beneficent by the standards of most gods. Oh, and who sometimes swears in Tibetan...

By now there were whole new Industrial Revolutions going on in the Low Earths; the British seemed to have the building of steam engines and railways in their genes.