Paul Lawrence

“Go down.” Lit made a rude noise. “Luke, why do you want to go down there? What could you possibly want from Mars? Revenge? A million tons of dust?” “Abstract knowledge.” “For what?” “Lit, you amaze me. Why did Earth go to space in the first place, if not for abstract knowledge?” Words crowded over each other to reach Lit’s mouth. They jammed in his throat, and he was speechless. He spread his hands, made frantic gestures, gulped twice, and said, “It’s obvious!” “Tell me slow. I’m a little dense.” “There’s everything in space. Monopoles. Metal. Vacuum for the vacuum industries. A place to build cheap without all kinds of bracing girders. Free fall for people with weak hearts. Room to test things that might blow up. A place to learn physics where you can watch it happen. Controlled environments—” “Was it all that obvious before we got here?” “Of course it was!” Lit glared at his visitor. The glare took in Garner’s withered legs, his drooping, mottled, hairless skin, the decades that showed in his eyes—and Lit remembered his visitor’s age. “… Wasn’t it?”
― Larry Niven, Tales of Known Space

“I think we all more or less know where we stand with people, whether we like to admit it to ourselves or not.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Brave Girl, Quiet Girl

“Get up, take heart—go, make a start, sing out the truth you came for. Then when you die, your heart may fly to halls we have no name for.”
― Anne McCaffrey, All the Weyrs of Pern

“Everybody’s on their best behavior during courting. That’s just how the world works. It’s how people work. Then, when they figure they’ve got you for keeps, that’s when you find out what you’ve really gotten yourself into.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, My Name Is Anton