The usual state of nature is recovering from the last disaster.

— James S.A. Corey

The velocities and forces involved in anything at orbital altitudes were enough to kill a human with just the rounding error. At their speeds, the friction from air too thin to breathe would set them on fire.

— James S.A. Corey

They loved scenes of righteous Godly vengeance on sinful mankind. They loved to show God’s chosen people safe from harm, watching with happy faces as they were proved right to the world. But they never showed the aftermath. They never showed weeping humans, crushed and dying in pools of their own fluids. Young men smashed into piles of red flesh. A young woman cut in half because she was passing through a hatchway when catastrophe hit. This was Armageddon. This is what it looked like. Blood and torn flesh and cries for help.

— James S.A. Corey

This was especially true in some millennialist sects that filled their literature with paintings of Armageddon. Pictures of terrified people running away from some formless fiery doom that burned their world down behind them, while smug worshipers—of the correct religion, of course—watched from safety as God got with the smiting.

— James S.A. Corey

Tilly screamed. Anna’s shocked brain only registered annoyance at the sound. Really, when had someone screaming ever solved a problem? She recognized her fixation on this irritation as her own way of avoiding the horror in front of her, but only in a distant and dreamy sort of way.

— James S.A. Corey

War without end. Well, what was history without that? And how would having the stars change anything?

— James S.A. Corey

Well,” Han said with a sigh, “we’ve gone from no-plan to stupid-plan. That’s progress of a sort.

— James S.A. Corey

We're all traitors now.” “Ha!” the old lady said. “Only if we lose.

— James S.A. Corey

We were full of righteous anger and dreams of vengeance when we got here, and a couple of blowjobs and hangovers later it's like nothing ever happened

— James S.A. Corey

Yeah," Chris said. "I lose a couple limbs getting drunk and falling into harvesting combine, I'm an idiot. I lose the same limbs because I happened to be standing next to the right door when the ship was damaged, I'm a hero.

— James S.A. Corey