Brian Taylor

“Past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully. My journey to the past had changed nothing, but what I had learned had changed everything, and I understood that it could not have been otherwise. If our lives are tales that Allah tells, then we are the audience as well as the players, and it is by living these tales that we receive their lessons.”
― Ted Chiang, The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate

“Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.”
― Ted Chiang, The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate

“Fate laughs at (wo)men's schemes.”
― Ted Chiang

“Four things do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.”
― Ted Chiang, The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate