Adrian Tchaikovsky > Quotes

“That is the problem with ignorance. You can never truly know the extent of what you are ignorant about.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time

“Life is not perfect, individuals will always be flawed, but empathy – the sheer inability to see those around them as anything other than people too – conquers all, in the end.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time

“A life lived entirely at the whim of another is no life at all.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time

“Humanity is overrated”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time

“If there had been some tiny bead present in the brain of all humans, that had told each other, They are like you; that had drawn some thin silk thread of empathy, person to person, in a planet-wide net – what might then have happened? Would there have been the same wars, massacres, persecutions and crusades?”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time

“Progress is made by the improvement of people, not the improvement of machines.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Blood of the Mantis

“At last the words fought themselves free, 'Promise me--'
'Nothing,' she snapped instantly. 'No promises. The universe promises us nothing; I extend the same to you.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time

“We’re going on an adventure.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin

“It is absolutely vital that appropriate levels of intrusive micromanagement, divisive paranoia, bullying, and the threat of arbitrary punishments are maintained, so that we can truly re-create the folkways of the past. Also a propensity for calling meetings at regular, and indeed irregular, intervals.

Adam, and what is the end purpose of all this work we are seeing?

Uncharles, there is none. This is also believed to be historically authentic.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Service Model

“Advance science as far as you like, the human mind continued to place itself at the centre of the universe.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin

“You're not like other Wasps."
"Aren't I?" Aagen smiled, but it was a painful smile. "No doubt you've killed my kinsmen by the score."
"A few," Salma allowed.
"Well, next time you shed my kinden's blood, think on this: we are but men, no less nor more than other men, and we strive and feel joy and fail as men have always done. We live in the darkness that is the birthright of us all, that of hurt and ignorance, only sometimes... sometimes there comes the sun." He let the bowl fall from his fingers to the floor, watching it spin and settle, unbroken.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Empire in Black and Gold

“Alpash moved to go, and for a moment Holsten was going to stop him, to ask that impossible question that historians can never ask, regarding the things they study: What is it like to be you? A question nobody can step far enough out of their own frame of reference to answer.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time

“evolution had gifted them with a profoundly complex toolkit for taking the world apart to see if there was a crab hiding under it.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin

“This will be the first of a thousand worlds that we will give life to. For we are gods, and we are lonely, so we shall create.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time

“You can never know. That is the problem with ignorance. You can never truly know the extent of what you are ignorant about.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time

“They were part of the problem, even though they never actively did bad things to people. They just benefited from all the bad things that had been done.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Service Model

“What does it mean that you are there and we are here? Is there meaning or is it random chance? Because what else does one ask even a broken cybernetic deity but, Why are we here?”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time

“He had bred them and mutated them and played all sorts of God, and now they wanted to know why and he had no answer.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin

“Sometimes it is hard because we have to make choices. I remember when having to make choices scared me more than anything else except Master being angry with me. Now I know that making choices is the price of being free.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Dogs of War

“Just because the tyrant dresses like a clown doesn’t mean he’s funny.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Alien Clay

“They are performing that oldest of tricks: constructing a path by which to reach a destination, only in this case the destination is permanent security. With each step they take towards it, that security recedes. And, with each step they take, the cost of progressing towards such security grows, and the actions required to move forward become more and more extreme.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time

“How much worse to think yourself wise, and still be as ignorant as one who knew themselves a fool?”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Elder Race

“None of these things are efficient or logical. I wish to report an error in the way that everything works.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Service Model

“The problem with judgement calls is that they’re only ever good or bad in retrospect.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Shards of Earth

“...what if, even as you replace everyone with robots that are cheaper and quicker and less likely to join a union or complain about working conditions, you also continue to insist that individual value is tied to production, and everyone who’s idle is a parasite scrounging off the state? Take away the ability of people to perform their own tasks and duties with no steps to provide for them when they are rendered obsolete. A growing rump of humans without function, livelihood, or resource. Paradoxically, the introduction of robots highlights how humans treat humans.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Service Model

“This is fucked up,” Olli sent to Kit. “There is no further up to which it might be fucked,” was his considered reply.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Lords of Uncreation

“Because the hardest thing about sacrifice is not knowing if it’ll be worth it. What’s the point in taking the bullet if the person behind you in the charge loses heart, dithers, runs away? You may as well have stayed at home. You only have one life after all. It can be very hard to know when to throw it away.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Alien Clay

“Human history is full of social conventions designed to salve the consciences of the mighty and curb the ambitions of the small.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Alien Clay

“Because the real problem with a knowledge-based economy is knowing that, no matter how hard you try, most of the information in the universe has already dissolved into entropy before you even evolved.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Memory

“Sometimes you go through your whole life not rocking the boat and they throw you over the side anyway.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Alien Clay