Larry Fleet Quotes

To be paranoid was to inflate one’s importance, to see oneself as worthy of persecution

Louis Wu, react." Louis answered. "You've started something you can't stop. You've attacked two war fleets, three if you count the Fleet of Worlds. Political structures get old and die, Bram, but information never gets lost anymore. Storage is too good.

You know how I…go through phases?” he asks, and his eyes flash up to Louis who blinks, confused. “Like the strawberries and the gingerbread?” “Exactly,” Harry smiles. “Like those. Well, I’ve always been that way, you see. I become fascinated by something, immerse myself in it…and then I’m done with it. Because, you see, once I’ve adored something, once I’ve found something perfectly beautiful, it is fleeting. It will never be perfect or wonderful to me again because I’ve already experienced it, already taken everything from it that I could.” Louis nods. That’s, maybe, the worst way in the world to think about things, but he nods. Because Harry’s not finished, and this all suddenly feels…very odd. He swallows his last mouthful and sets down his food, waiting for Harry to continue, skin beginning to prickle. “However,” Harry continues calmly, stubbing out his cigarette and setting full eyes on Louis. Full, empty eyes. Shit. “It’s not just objects that I feel that way about. I’m like that with people as well.” Louis shifts under Harry’s gaze, feeling a cold sense of dread spread from the center of his body to every extremity and crevice. “I find people who fascinate me. I play with them. I have fun. I enjoy them. And then?” Harry takes a sip of his sparkling water. “Then I’m done with them. I become bored. And I don’t want them around anymore.” His eyes bore into Louis’ as he sets down his glass. “Last night made me realize, Louis. You’re one of those people.

He had learned to embrace insanity. The full measure of his madness was that he had even come to like humans

Louis told himself he only wanted to know if he could get pills. His addiction wasn’t broken unless he had a choice to lapse.

Churchill made a point about the power of government: A National or Municipal Beef Trust, with the United States Treasury at its back, might indeed give more regular employment at higher wages to its servants, and might sell cleaner food to its customers—at a price. But if evil systems corrupt good men, it is no less true that base men will dishonor any system, and while no bond of duty more exacting than that of material recompense regulates the relations of man and man, while no motion more lofty than that of self-interest animates the exertions of every class, and no hope beyond the limits of this fleeting world lights the struggles of humanity, the most admirable systems will merely succeed in transferring, under different forms and pretexts, the burden of toil, misery, and injustice from one set of human shoulders to another.

He opened up about the major fear keeping him up at night: namely that Google’s cofounder and CEO Larry Page might well have been building a fleet of artificial-intelligence-enhanced robots capable of destroying mankind. “I’m really worried about this,” Musk said.

The galaxy was a dangerous place and humans made excellent cannon fodder.

To be blinded and deafened by choice, by tubacles hungrily, pervertedly swallowing each other. To submerge one’s mind into some—abomination. How could they do it? How did they bear it? It was unnatural, disgusting, obscene.

How simple life must have been before progress.

The Concordance’s maximum-security prison colony and labor camp.

Why don’t Citizens use AI?” “Because we fear creating our successors.

This makes no sense,” Nessus said. “Not to me, at least. Did the Pak ships not understand the recorded warning?

He had learned to embrace insanity. The full measure of his madness was that he had even come to like humans.

Submarine approaching!” Louis shouted. “Nessus! Torpedoes in the water! Nuclear warheads.” Shuddering seismically, Nessus unfolded. His necks writhed like serpents. His heads swiveled, searching everywhere for danger. “Torpedoes?” he bleated, leaping to his hooves. “My mistake. Just some fish,” Louis said.

Nessus had thought a great deal in recent years about luck and unintended consequences

My grandma always says, ‘Never attribute to malice what can be as easily attributed to stupidity.

Baedeker knew Ol’t’ro. Without a doubt, they would send an expedition to explore the ring world. They must never learn of Hearth’s prior involvement there. If Ol’t’ro ever suspected, let alone confirmed, what extreme measures the Concordance had taken to preempt possible adversaries, they would obliterate the herd without qualms.

ON DAY THIRTY-FOUR, choking down another sawdust-flavored energy bar, Sigmund found himself fantasizing how Puppeteer meat would taste.

Any alcohol is potable by the third serving.

So that’s where he and Bey went. Out to do something famously stupid.

Concordance

And yet, trees remained standing near the epicenter.

Parthenon?

Happiness is the sworn enemy of vigilance

A supernovae chain reaction is discovered at the galaxy’s core.

As Kirsten steered Explorer into orbit around the distant spark named G567-X2, she initiated a deep-radar scan. It was both doctrine and enigma. Neutrinos passed right through normal matter, so what were they looking for? “It is good practice,” was the only explanation their trainer had offered. “Nessus will know what to do if there is a return signal.

We don’t know yet where we, where humans come from. We only have names: Earth, Sol system, human space.

Hence, I have asked General Products to allow me to install a remote-control bomb in Skydiver. Since it is inside the hull, the hull cannot protect you.

It was comforting somehow to see his minions exhibit traces of conscience. “The right to have children should not depend on your political connections.” Stealing a glance at a holo of Nike, Nessus wondered whose political system he questioned.

We left behind violence with the era of scarcity that the mentally ill used to excuse it.

They followed that quick walkthrough with a systematic survey along each corridor and stairwell, and into every room. Long Pass was mostly machinery; there wasn’t that much in habitable volume.

methane clathrates.

Somehow, Nessus managed to function. He found it hard to care.

A radio-linked auxiliary bridge display repeated the deep-radar image: an opaque cube buried in the ice. The cube disappeared. A steam geyser burst from the ice. A massive figure emerged. It was an armed and armored Kzin! Jason and Anne-Marie ran for the ship, only to be cut down.

He ignored that, too. Before it could interrupt a third time, he dipped a head into the pocket and powered off the unit, averting his eye from the display. He did not want to know who had called.

Tantalus

No, Sigmund thought sadly, she doesn’t get it. Millions of years in ceaseless warfare, clan against clan.

Go down fighting” was not a plan.

Even the rubble of a successfully shattered NP4, strewn in the path of the Fleet, would be fearfully dangerous. Only utter desperation could justify that course of action

We encounter few Citizens or humans in this region. We were surprised to receive your hail. Did you have difficulty finding us?

Now!” he radioed. Capture the ship! The commandos flung off their cloaks, dropped to all sixes, and swarmed.

electric constant.

Here goes nothing.

Ah, curiosity.” A very human trait. Wandering away from the herd got animals killed. Any semblance to curiosity was bred out of Nessus’ ancestors long before the first glimmer of sentience.

You tell him the ARM believes they’re truly leaving Known Space. We’ll allow them to retreat in peace—if they leave us in peace.

I, however, wish to purchase exclusivity henceforth: of the system’s location and even its existence.” What else could he ask to safeguard the Fleet?

Then Brennan was less than confident he could lure away or defeat the Pak.” Still not explaining special treatment for Alice. “Why protect Alice more than the billions on Earth?

He settled on chunks of fried lobster soaked in black squid ink. The negotiation hadn’t begun, and Musk was already dishing. He opened up about the major fear keeping him up at night: namely that Google’s cofounder and CEO Larry Page might well have been building a fleet of artificial-intelligence-enhanced robots capable of destroying mankind.

Other than a small stock of tree-of-life root that had been entrusted to Brennan (he had to eat, after all), the only supply for thousands of light-years had been in ARM custody—and they had incinerated it.