Jan

“Self-preservation was a basic directive, but there wasn’t a robot functioning that prioritized it at the top of the list. Like biologicals all robots were seeking a purpose. Autos and drones were lucky enough to have that built into them. A bot had to find his own way and I’d figured out that functioning for function’s sake was pointless. The real question was finding a directive worth getting scrapped for.”
― A. Lee Martinez, The Automatic Detective

“What d'ya mean, where the crawdads sing? Ma used to say that." Kya remembered Ma always encouraging her to explore the marsh: "Go as far as you can --- way out yonder where the crawdads sing."
Tate said, "Just means far in the bush where critters are wild, still behaving like critters.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“Crime was a dirty public secret in Empire. No one talked about it, and if you listened to the Learned Council, you'd think Empire was a shining utopia of order and decency. True, there were plenty of districts where a citizen could live in complete safety, where police were omnipresent, reliable, and completely effective, where no one ever got mugged or slapped around, or murdered. Then there was the rest of the city.. In a town where technology was supposed to be the answer to all society's ills, there were plenty of ills to go around.”
― A. Lee Martinez, The Automatic Detective

“She whispered a verse by Amanda Hamilton:

You came again,
blinding my eyes
like the shimmer of sun upon the sea.
Just as I feel free
the moon casts your face upon the sill.
Each time I forget you
your eyes haunt my heart and it falls still.
And so farewell
until the next time you come,
until at last I do not see you.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing