Matthew Root

“Far from being the smartest possible biological species, we are probably better thought of as the stupidest possible biological species capable of starting a technological civilization—a niche we filled because we got there first, not because we are in any sense optimally adapted to it.”
― Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

“What is any achievement, however great it was, once time itself is dead?”
― Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons

“I am sorry to tell you this thing. You are a good man, and a pretty thing. But still, you are only a man. All you have to offer the world is your anger.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“The only desire the Culture could not satisfy from within itself was one common to both the descendants of its original human stock and the machines they had (at however great a remove) brought into being: the urge not to feel useless.”
― Iain M. Banks, Consider Phlebas