Neal Asher > Quotes

“And, when the revolutionary cries that he is fighting for ‘freedom’, be sure to go running away from him just as fast as you can, for you can be damned certain he’s fighting for the freedom to tell you what to do.”
― Neal Asher, The Departure

“Satisfaction, for us, is only a brief thing. The man who acquires wealth does not reach a point where he has enough. Success for us is more like acceleration than speed. Interest cannot be maintained at a constant level.”
― Neal Asher, The Skinner

“The greatest admission a human can make is that perhaps he does not have the intelligence, the vision, the grasp to fully understand the universe, and that perhaps no human ever will. To put it all down to some omnipotent deity is a cop-out. Factor in fairy tales of an afterlife and it becomes a comforting cop-out.”
― Neal Asher, The Line of Polity

“Cormac was completely aware that he was being manipulated, but how he could not see. He reckoned that when he did find out, the surprise would be a nasty one. That was how it usually went.”
― Neal Asher, Gridlinked

“Try to think like a human,’ said Gant, lolling in one of the club chairs.
‘Why should I restrict myself so severely?”
― Neal Asher, Brass Man

“Harl whirled round, all his attention ... on Skulker. "What is that on your carapace?""What?" Skulker tried to peer back... A tinny voice issued from somewhere... It took Skulker a moment to recognize it as that of the human male he earlier encountered. "It's CTD gecko mine - yield of about five kilotones." Skulker's shriek terminated in a blast that peeled back four square kilometers of jungle canopy and sunk a crater down to the bedrock.”
― Neal Asher, Prador Moon

“Mysticism is the function of a mind looking for alternatives to reality.”
― Neal Asher, The Technician

“It all came back to human time and utterly human impulses: in the end, gods did not appreciate godlike power, but humans did.”
― Neal Asher, Polity Agent

“They say time heals. No, it just wears away pain. It grinds everything to dust.”
― Neal Asher, Dark Intelligence

“by which time the turd trajectory would be fanwards.”
― Neal Asher, Dark Intelligence

“Thus, in moments of catastrophe, when hard decisions needed to be made quickly, all AIs included in their calculations a human death toll governed by a factor called ‘pigheadedness’.”
― Neal Asher, Polity Agent

“Blew up? How?’ ‘We dropped a shielded runcible gate into it while the gate at the other end was moved into position before a stream of near-light-speed asteroids flung out from a spinning black hole.”
― Neal Asher, War Factory

“It seemed that, after contact with a few human generations, sand hogs would begin to understand human speech. The irony was that after coming to understand their riders fully, the beasts often ended up abandoning them and heading off into the wilderness.”
― Neal Asher, Brass Man

“If Polity forces were to turn up here, then your king would have to respond, by which time the turd trajectory would be fanwards.”
― Neal Asher, Dark Intelligence

“Who are you?’ asked Gurun. ‘I am the Polity black-ops stealth attack ship Obsidian Blade.’ ‘Fuck,’ said Gurun.”
― Neal Asher, The Soldier

“Why do I get the feeling, interjected Cheops, that shit and fan are moving into conjunction, and that we might be in the way?”
― Neal Asher, The Technician

“There is no doubt that Earth Central, the planetary and sector AIs, and even some ship and drone AIs are capable, without acquiring additional processing space, of setting up synergetic systems within themselves that result in an exponential climb in intelligence (mathematically defined as climbing beyond all known scales within minutes). So why not? Ask then why a human, capable of learning verbatim the complete works of Shakespeare, instead drinks a bottle of brandy, then giggles a lot and falls over.”
― Neal Asher, Polity Agent

“prodestinationactinicablecomlivesurvin—”
― Neal Asher, Gridlinked

“Coloron often pondered how a race, in which the stupid seemed more inclined to breed, had managed to come this far, and why human intelligence persisted—a discussion point in the nature vs nurture debate which had not died in half a millennium.”
― Neal Asher, Polity Agent

“Perhaps the possibility of me being eaten at any moment was interfering with my rationality.”
― Neal Asher, Lockdown Tales

“Why did anyone make a deal with the devil? Desperation, pursuit of power and wealth … Or perhaps a mistaken confidence in one’s ability to avoid pitfalls, to take something worthwhile from that deal and not be, as some would have it, “royally screwed.”
― Neal Asher, Dark Intelligence

“Democracy is a luxury enjoyed by simple low-population societies, though wealth can maintain it for longer than its natural span. However, societies grow in population and complexity, the technological apparatus of control improves, individual freedoms impinge upon others until they demand “action” from government that is generally eager to comply and accrue more power to itself, and democracy gradually sickens and dies.”
― Neal Asher, The Departure

“to appreciate the wonder of the universe, one must first remain alive.”
― Neal Asher, Dark Intelligence

“shattered like old glass,”
― Neal Asher, War Factory

“You are newborn from the furnace and about to enter Hell. And in time you will, for reasons will find obscure, name yourself Penny Royal ...”
― Neal Asher, Dark Intelligence

“about the Babbage Difference Engine,”
― Neal Asher, World Walkers

“Human life had become cheap in the sprawls, with policing focused on being a barrier between Zero Assets like this girl, and the more important Societal Assets, who contributed to this sick society. It was a social model the USA had adopted years ago under the direction of the international Committee. One consequence was that the deaths of ZAs were now simply viewed as a sanitary problem by those above them.”
― Neal Asher, World Walkers

“The more miraculous a technology is, the more prone it is to catastrophic breakdown.”
― Neal Asher, The Skinner

“Thorn’s reply to this involved a physically impossible sexual activity in conjunction with the edible but prickly fruit of a bromeliad.”
― Neal Asher, The Line Of Polity

“Art is just another way to describe and classify reality – its mystical aspects merely a function of ignorance.”
― Neal Asher, The Technician