“Posthuman. It was a word from advertising copy, breathless and empty, and all hed ever thought it really meant was that the people using it had a limited imagination about what exactly humans were ...”

“Part of his mind was screaming, but it was a distant one and easy to ignore.”

“War without end. Well, what was history without that? And how would having the stars change anything?”

“Nothing lasted forever. Not peace. Not war. Nothing.”

“The messages coming back flooded the comm buffers with rage and sorrow, threats of vengeance and offers of aid. Those last were the hardest. New colonies still trying to force their way into local ...”

“Because we can't just blow up enough things that this becomes a good situation.”

“How can I tell anyone that there has always lived within me a rusty sense of disgust-a dull, brackish water that I suspect is my soul?”

“I'll tell you a secret.Old storytellers never die.They disappear into their own story.”

“A secret note is secret. There is no reason to sign it.”