Quotes from Peter F. Hamilton

the Silfen wouldn't let her use their paths and worlds as a refuge.

You are responsible to your political paymasters, and their eternal quest for the status quo.

Perfection 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 Evolutionary Void)

Because anything that has to use the Cat to make it work can't be right. It just can't.

A lake five kilometers long and three wide, with islands of rock pinnacles whose crests were covered in a thatch of verdant vegetation.

A promise made under duress is not legally binding. I'm sure you'll have enough lawyers on your side to confirm that.

Arnice was lying motionless on the cot at the end, his head swaddled, leaving only narrow slits for his eyes and mouth.

Loi and Eldlund were a lot more cautious – we should investigate longer, bring in more equipment and specialists, make detailed risk assessments. Typical corporate culture kids. They had no concept of taking responsibility, because that meant consequences – and Legal always hated consequences.

Hope doesn't die just because a life is lost, or even a million lives.

Ozzie would have loved to dive right in and give himself a decent clean, but even though they still hadn't seen a single living creature on this world, he just couldn't quite bring himself to trust the water. Too many late student nights with a pizza, a couple of six-packs, some grass, and a bad sci-fi DVD. God only knew what lurked along the bottom of the river, maybe nothing, but he certainly wasn't going to wind up with alien eggs hatching out of his ass, thank you.

Queuing to pick up their Darwin Award

To get to his level in under a hundred fifty years illustrated a phenomenal achievement.

Ah, that's the Jaguar-Chevrolet 2251 T-bird, the convertible

Officially. That's what it'll be: officially vindicated.

There were eight of them standing across the road a hundred meters short of the plaza. Pastel light from the buildings on either side glittered across their extravagant jeweled longcoats. One of them raised a long white spear and bowed slightly. "Silfen," Gore sighed, resisting the urge to give them the finger in return.

No humans lived in Albany itself; the technicians who kept it running were housed in dormitory towns twenty miles away.

Ideologues are welcome to live with the values they admire, I have no problem with that, but you have to give the next generation the freedom and ability to go their own way. Anything else is fascism.

Who had actually been first would never now be known. Both governments had claimed them: the wealth contained in the lonely metal chunks would be a heady boost for the planet whose companies could mine and refine such plentiful ore.

it was simply the solar system's colder version of hell.

Humans are so fascinating, aren't we? If ten of us are each given our own piano, we'll play eleven different tunes.

Our perception of the Silfen as gentle and kind is our own stupid, convenient illusion. We wanted to believe in elves. And how many human bodies lie out there under the snow because of that?

Edeard was taken to one of the rooms on the seventh floor, where a tailor who specialized in dressing militia officers was summoned to produce a set of constable uniforms made from cloth more fitting to someone of his new "status.

Around them, the rest of the thirty-strong fleet was moving, spreading wide as they left the three habitats behind, assuming the broad circular formation that they would maintain for the next hundred thirty-seven light-years.

It docked at one of their national low orbit stations, the Spirit of Freedom