Edward Ashton > Quotes

“I’ve always believed it’s important to accept the people in your life for what they are. There’s no such thing as a perfect friend, any more than there’s any such thing as a perfect anything, and if you slag everyone in your life for their many and varied failings, you’re going to miss appreciating the good stuff they bring to the table.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“You are the Ship of Theseus. We all are. There is not a single living cell in my body that was alive and a part of me ten years ago, and the same is true for you. We’re constantly being rebuilt, one board at a time.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“It’s a truism that every new technological advancement in human history has been applied first to advance the interests of the horny. The printing press? Some Bibles, mostly porn. Antibiotics? Perfect for treating STIs.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“Apparently three hours of training lectures aren’t enough to overcome a billion years of ingrained instinct for self-preservation.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“And so, like bored young men throughout history, I spent an unfortunate amount of my time finding ways to get myself into trouble.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“... everybody knows what expendables are for. We die over and over so you don’t have to. You’d think maybe folks would be grateful for that, but that’s not how the human brain works. Watching someone else run into a fire while you stand safe and sound on the sidewalk outside doesn’t make you feel grateful. It makes you feel guilty. Nobody likes feeling guilty. So on some level you convince yourself that your expendable deserves what he’s getting.”
― Edward Ashton, Antimatter Blues

“The second area where every new technology is applied, of course, is war.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“I was—I am—the sort of person who in an earlier age would have been a low-level academic of some sort. I would have read obscure books that I found in obscure archives, and written obscure papers that nobody would ever have read.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“THE NEXT TWO hours are weird. I don’t think I want to talk about them. Just to be clear, though: I regret nothing.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“She giggles. I’m not ordinarily a fan of giggling, but Charity giggles with panache.”
― Edward Ashton, Three Days in April

“it’s important to accept the people in your life for what they are. There’s no such thing as a perfect friend, any more than there’s any such thing as a perfect anything, and if you slag everyone in your life for their many and varied failings, you’re going to miss appreciating the good stuff they bring to the table.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“My point is that those aren’t just cameras, or drones, or crawlers. They’re the eyes of the panopticon. Every single spy eye in North America is networked or tapped, Anders. They all feed into NatSec’s network.”
― Edward Ashton, Three Days in April

“In order to make a leap like that, you have to either be running toward something great, or running away from something truly terrifying.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“We can skip a breakdown in the antimatter containment unit,” she said. “That problem solves itself.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“I would have read obscure books that I found in obscure archives, and written obscure papers that nobody would ever have read.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“There’s no such thing as a perfect friend, any more than there’s any such thing as a perfect anything, and if you slag everyone in your life for their many and varied failings, you’re going to miss appreciating the good stuff they bring to the table.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“I added up the benefits of having him in my life, deducted the annoyance of having to pay for everything anytime we went anywhere, and decided that on the balance, he was a net positive.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“The other me is already here, and despite all appearances, Eight is most definitely not a continuation of me. Honestly, he doesn’t even seem to like me very much.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“We’re constantly being rebuilt, one board at a time. If you actually take on this job, you’ll probably be rebuilt all at once at some point, but at the end of the day, it’s really no different, is it? When an Expendable takes a trip to the tank, he’s just doing in one go what his body would naturally do over the course of time anyway. As long as memory is preserved, he hasn’t really died. He’s just undergone an unusually rapid remodeling.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“That’s who he is. Everything’s easier if you can just accept that and move on.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“I slide closer, put my hand on his shoulder and kiss his forehead. “Fine,” I say. “I’ll let it go for now.” He kisses my nose, and presses his forehead to mine. “Thank you,” he says. “I would tell you more if there were more to tell.” “Remember,” I say. “I said for now. You’re not off the hook permanently.” He rolls onto his back and closes his eyes again. I watch as his breathing slows, then let my own eyes fall closed. I’m just drifting off when he says, “It is a Faraday cage.”
― Edward Ashton, Three Days in April

“I’ve always believed it’s important to accept the people in your life for who they are. There’s no such thing as a perfect friend, any more than there’s any such thing as a perfect anything, and if you slag everyone in your life for their many varied failings, you’re going to miss appreciating the good stuff they bring to the table.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“important to accept the people in your life for what they are. There’s no such thing as a perfect friend, any more than there’s any such thing as a perfect anything, and if you slag everyone in your life for their many and varied failings, you’re going to miss appreciating the good stuff they bring to the table.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“She shakes her head again, chews and swallows. “Perhaps,” she says, and takes a sip of tea. “Tariq asked me not to speak to you of our faith, and I agreed that I would not. But he has left you here in my clutches, and we cannot speak clearly if you remain completely ignorant of all that is around you. And I cannot tolerate sharing my home with you if we cannot speak clearly.” She drains her cup, reaches for the pot and refills it. “What you hear now, it cannot be unheard. You understand this?” I nod. I’ve heard the sales pitches of missionaries before—Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists—they always think what they say will change your world, but I’ve never been able to figure out what they’re getting so worked up about.”
― Edward Ashton, Three Days in April

“Gary—” says Tariq. “Oh, cram it,” I say. “We’re not gonna do it, because, as I have already explained several times, it can’t be done. Anyway, Charity’s not NatSec. And even if she was, they can’t drop a crowbar on you for fantasizing. Although, now that I think about it, they probably can drop a crowbar on you for knowing that your girlfriend got out of Hagerstown alive. Charity—you’re not NatSec, are you?” She laughs again. Her giggle is sweet, but she laughs like a hyena. I find it doesn’t bother me, though, as long as I stay focused on what it does to her breasts.”
― Edward Ashton, Three Days in April

“My apostasy saddens her. This is very true. There are few of us left, and every loss now is another coffin nail. There is great beauty in the faith, and very deep truth. But there is also a bitterness at the core that I found at some point I could no longer deny.”
― Edward Ashton, Three Days in April

“What difference does it make if he replaces every component one by one, or if he replaces them all at once?”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“The short answer is that I’ve always believed it’s important to accept the people in your life for what they are. There’s no such thing as a perfect friend, any more than there’s any such thing as a perfect anything, and if you slag everyone in your life for their many and varied failings, you’re going to miss appreciating the good stuff they bring to the table.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“External repairs during interstellar transit was on the list. So were exposure to local flora and fauna, necessary medical experiments, combat against any hostiles we might encounter, and on and on for so long that I finally tuned out. The plain fact was that it didn’t matter what they were going to do to me. I didn’t have a choice if I wanted a berth. I wasn’t a pilot. I wasn’t a medico. I wasn’t a geneticist or botanist or xenobiologist. I wasn’t even a spear-carrier. I had no practical skills of any sort—but I really, really needed to get the hell off of Midgard, and I needed to do it quickly.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7

“You know," she says, "if you'd asked me before we left Midgard how I thought I was going to die, shoved down the corpse hole for sex crimes wouldn't have been at the top of my list.”
― Edward Ashton, Mickey7