Quotes from Richard K. Morgan

Yukio was angry because he was. Because he was an asshole male with delusions of status just like Dad, just like the rest of them, and I'd humiliated him in front of Plex and Tanaseda. Because he was an asshole male just like the rest of them, in fact, and rage was the default setting.

The difference between virtuality and life is very simple. In a construct you know everything is being run by an all-powerful machine. Reality doesn't offer this assurance, so it's very easy to develop the mistaken impression that you're in control. Quellcrist Falconer Ethics on the Precipice

Fact remains—launch determines orbit, and Torres got a launch in life that put him low and in decay from the start. You just give it time and watch the sky.

We're all small and harmless once, Archidi. But we all grow up. And some of us grow up needing killing.

Something's not right. Without applying rationale as a mediator, select your first impulse. What would it be?

Le progrès est toujours difficile à définir

It'll take a stronger kind of human to deal with it, but that's always been the case, with every major step in knowledge or technology that we take. You can't get by on past models, you have to keep moving forward, building better minds and bodies. Either that or the universe moves in like a swamp panther and eats you alive.

Tell me something, Gradual—back in Hellas, do they categorize the triads as organized crime?" I paused to let the insult sink in. "Because over here in the Gash, if someone inside the familias andinas was this fucking disorganized, they'd last about ten minutes.

Like so much of what goes on in the Gash, the overall aim is consumer tranquillity, not truth.

I am Friend to Carrion Crows and Wolves. I am Carry Me and Kill with Me, and Die with Me Where the Road Ends. I am not the Honeyed Promise of Length of Life in Years to Come, I am the Iron Promise of Never Being a Slave.

Bullet-proof, right?' 'Mmm.' Kawahara tipped her head to one side. 'Depends on the bullet, I would say. But impact resistant, certainly.

Ce n'est pas un des miens non plus, a dit Bancroft un peu trop vite. J'ai choisi cet exemple au hasard. Il y a des choses, des désirs en chacun de nous qu'il vaut mieux étouffer. Ou au moins, qu'il est impossible d'exprimer dans un contexte civilisé.

Planetary colonization is invariably a destructive process, and advanced technology hasn't done much more than sanitize that process so that humans are guaranteed their customary position on top of whatever ecosystem they are raping.

I'd rather you didn't smoke in here.' 'Kawahara, I'd rather you died of an internal haemorrhage, but I don't suppose you'll oblige me.

ultimate insult that it's just business, it's politics, it's the way of the world, it's a tough life, and that it's nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal. QUELLCRIST FALCONER Things I Should Have Learned by Now Volume II There

La culture est comme le smog. Pour y vivre, il faut en respirer une partie et, inévitablement, être contaminé.

Common men make a distinction between gods and demons, Poltar, but it's ignorance to talk that way. When the powers do our will, we worship them as gods; when they thwart and frustrate us, we hate and fear them as demons. They are the same creatures, the same twisted unhuman things. The shamans path is negotiation, nothing more. We tend the relationship with the powers so they bring us more benefit than ruin. We can do no more. And

Votre culture est trop superficielle pour comprendre la vie terrienne, et votre expérience est limitée. Aimer la même personne durant deux cent cinquante ans… À la fin, si vous y réussissez, si vous déjouez les pièges de l'ennui et de la complaisance, l'amour disparaît… remplacé par un sentiment proche de la vénération.

In any agenda, political or otherwise, there is a cost to be borne. Always ask what it is, and who will be paying. If you don't, then the agenda-makers will pick up the perfume of your silence like swamp panthers on the scent of blood, and the next thing you know, the person expected to bear the cost will be you. And you may not have what it takes to pay. Quellcrist Falconer Things I Should Have Learnt By Now Vol II

we're all just feeding off the stored fat of a dream gone bad. You want soy sauce on that?

The lawyers I saw there had about as much in common with the man who had defended me at fifteen as automated machine rifle fire has with farting.

Hombres y mujeres no son más que mercancías, como todo lo demás. Acomódalos, flétalos y trasvásalos. Y por favor firma aquí abajo.

who knows how the data behind these metaphors has traveled, from where and for how long.

No son humanos, se relacionan con la humanidad del mismo modo que usted y yo nos relacionamos con el mundo de los insectos.