Ian Tregillis

"Heartlessness wasn’t the sole province of the rich."

"And, as was so often the case, the history taught to children was oversimplified, watered down, and ofttimes counterfactual."

"First, the fact he awoke at all. Cogito, ergo how the hell aren’t I dead?"

"How could you comprehend things whose existence you doubt?"

"“Absence of proof,” said Bell, “is not proof of absence.”"

"Freedom felt like… nothing. Free Will was a vacuum, a negative space. It was the absence of coercion, the absence of compulsion, the absence of agony. A gap in his consciousness where geasa had perpetually jostled for priority, demanding his obedience. It was the photographic negative of Jax’s existence during every minute of the 118 years since he’d been forged. It was overwhelming. Exhilarating. Terrifying. Overwhelming: he could do anything he wanted. But the grand sum of anything-at-all was nothing-at-all. The topology of freedom offered no gradients to nudge him, no landmarks to guide him. How did humans guide themselves? How did they know what to do and what not to do? How did they know when to do anything without the benefit of geasa and metageasa to prioritize every single action of their waking lives? How did they order their daily existence without somebody to tell them what to do?"

"The fallacy of your personal bias is inherent in your choice of words."

"“Sergeant,” she said as they mounted the stairs leading to her old apartments, “thank you for treating me like a human being. And, for what it’s worth, I am sorry about how this turned out.” He grunted. “It can’t be undone,” was all he said."

"He’d expected torture. He hadn’t expected surgery."

"It’s not my fault your makers made you humorless."

"Such were the brittle threads of a relationship built not on trust but on a slurry of fear, mutual codependence, and self-interest."

"They were old enough to know such things were forbidden, yet young enough still to find the forbidden irresistible rather than terrifying."