Wes Spence

“Some things have to be done. It's better to do them, than to live with the fear of them.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

“The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life—another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod—there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It’s the explanation for the Fermi Paradox.”
― Liu Cixin, The Dark Forest

“He could remember a time when darkness had been a quality of the world itself, a thing of the sky when the sun sagged below the horizon and the light leaked out; a thing of the sea when you dove deep enough for the weight of the salt water to smother the shine; a thing of castle keeps and caves after someone snuffed the last lamp and the great stone space went black. Even the darkness of Hull’s Hole, that absolute absence of light filling the cave’s snaking chamber: you went into it, then you came out. Or if you failed to come, if the slarn tore you apart, then you slid into the longer darkness of death. It had seemed an awful fate once, being stuck in that endless black. That was before the blade had taught Valyn hui’Malkeenian a greater, more terrible truth: the outer dark, for all its horrors - the old, cold dark of caverns or the bottomless dark of the dead - it was nothing when set beside the darkness carried inside, a darkness bled into poisoned flesh and carved across ruined eyes, a darkness of the self.”
― Brian Staveley, The Last Mortal Bond

“Whenever there is a conflict of interest (or a potential conflict of interest) between two animals making their own decisions to maximize their own fitness, then an evolutionary game is in play. Each individual is trying to outmaneuver the other, or perhaps cooperate with the other, but for selfish reasons. In the log run, the best gaming strategy is the one that is likely to evolve.”
― Arik Kershenbaum, The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens – and Ourselves