Quotes from Neal Asher

He wasn't sure which he hated most, the oppressive government of this world or the mindless, ever-breeding swarm it governed.

You realize that people of your time were misguided in their belief that tyrannosaurus was merely a carrion eater? That all came from their softening outlook on existence – a political correctness engendering the attitude that at their root all creatures are good. They were in fact right the first time: tyrannosaurus is a vicious predator that will rip apart anything that moves, usually to devour but sometimes for the fun of it.

When you destroyed autocratic regimes, you caused more death and suffering than the regime itself, and often ended up with something worse. Your violent revolutions never resulted in anything better, and your revolutionaries always turned into the thing they despised.

Any complex technology is the product of many antecedents. Destroy the infrastructure of a society supporting such technology and, though the knowledge itself might not be lost, the society would lose the basis on which the tech was built. Members of a human civilization bombed back into the Stone Age are hardly going to be able to build computers from flint and wood.

It is in fact a harsh reality that he who believes killers are an aberration is also he who has the boot planted firmly on his neck;

Supposedly, all this bright new technology would provide new opportunities for employment, just like the IT boom at the end of the twentieth century. But the need for professionals could not be met because of a lack of intensive education and, frankly, intelligence. So the AIs took up the slack, leaving millions unemployed and unemployable.

around the railgun arrived in Cutter's mind. He already had the schematic available but Bludgeon's showed him what kind of explosives could be used

You mustn't judge them so harshly. Everyone has a right to their own beliefs no matter how imbecilic.

Boredom is a problem,' he opined. 'Only if you're stupid,' the woman replied. 'They've got everything they need but for something to occupy their tiny minds.

Welfare had transformed from safety net to a necessity to prevent economic collapse.

Art is just another way to describe and classify reality – its mystical aspects merely a function of ignorance.

That he had received these checks now he put down to human intervention – officialdom trying to 'control the situation' using their usual method of clamping down on people's rights.

Ah, you begin to acquire wisdom,' said Sprag. 'Irritation is one of the first signs.

Morality is a variable construct that grows to include more dictums relative to the wealth and safety of the population concerned.

Sometimes, when you fight a war, you become what you are fighting.

when the revolutionary cries that he is fighting for "freedom," be sure to go running away from him just as fast as you can, for you can be damned certain he's fighting for the freedom to tell you what to do. ANTARES

So we have transitioned from bugger off to philosophy now?

breadth of experience is worthwhile in my estimation. Consider this another nugget of wisdom: you don't want to end up so lost in your power and omniscience that you forget how to take a shit.

The more miraculous a technology is, the more prone it is to catastrophic breakdown.

Eller nodded while staring into the flames, then said, 'Have you heard of the Occam Heresy?' 'I have. The heresy is that only verifiable facts can be assumed as truth, while ecclesiastical thought is only speculation. It is denial of God. It negates the idea that the Fall was due to the sin of pride.' 'Very dangerous in religious circles,' said Eller. 'We wouldn't want facts to get in the way now would we?

I have a tendency to over-focus on the task in hand, with an exclusivity that is borderline autistic.

Organized religions are just elaborate con-tricks. Take the Christian religion from which yours is an offshoot: "Obey me throughout your life, give me the product of your labour, and you will go to Paradise when you die. Disobey me and you will go to Hell and burn forever. Of course I cannot prove that this is what will actually happen – you just have to have faith." That was a good one, and it worked well enough in a society that still believed the Earth was flat.

Morality, he often argued, is a purely human invention only to be indulged in times of plenty.

Time travel is dangerous, cosmic disaster dangerous. Using it for anything less than the aversion of a cosmic disaster equates to using a fusion drive to travel from one side of your house to the other. You'll certainly arrive, but there probably won't be anything left of your house when you do.