Robert Charles Wilson

"But really, who do you think we’re working for? Not some Sunday school god, not the proverbial loving shepherd. The shoving leopard, more like."

"The past was gone, the dead were dead and did not speak, and everybody dies; one day Oberg would be dead and silent, too, and that was as it should be: the broad and welcoming ocean of oblivion. It made life bearable. It was sacred. It should not be tampered with."

"The awful thing about lying was that it became a habit, then a reflex, as automatic as the blinking of the eyes or the voiding of the bowels. Lying was the Terrestrial disease, his mother used to say."

"I understand so very little. But I am not afraid to look: I am a good observer at last. My eyes are open, and I am not afraid."

"“You learning anything from this?” Tyrell asked. Turk stood up and brushed his hands. “Yeah. Im learning that I know even less than I thought I did.”"

"He was as alone as he had ever been, frighteningly alone, in a borderless land of shaded forests and rocky, abyssal gorges. But that was all right. He didn’t much mind being alone. It was what happened when people were around that worried him."