“The only reason we were here was because nobody had yet optimized software for First Contact.” — Peter Watts First contact Copy Share Image
If the rest of your brain were conscious, it would probably regard you as the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert — Peter Watts Boss Copy Share Image
“I don't understand how meat like you survived to adulthood.” — Peter Watts Adulthood Copy Share Image
“Psychopathy's no disorder in those shoes, eh? Just a survival strategy.” — Peter Watts Psychopath Copy Share Image
“You can’t turn a sunset into a string of grunts without losing something.” — Peter Watts Language Copy Share Image
People aren't rational. We're not thinking machines, we're - we're feeling machines that happen to think. — Peter Watts Computers Copy Share Image
“After four thousand years we can’t even prove that reality exists beyond the mind of the first-person dreamer.” — Peter Watts Dreamer Copy Share Image
“It’s really kind of… well, beautiful, in a way. Even the monsters, once you get to know ‘em. We’re all beautiful.” — Peter Watts Beautiful Copy Share Image
This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: You hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the… — Peter Watts Copy Share Image
“The static’s nice. I could do without the screeching.” “Are you kidding? That’s the music of the spheres, commissar. It’s beautiful .… — Peter Watts Beautiful Copy Share Image
“Most people seem to think that organisms develop adaptive traits in response to environmental change. This is bullshit. The environment changes and… — Peter Watts Biology Copy Share Image
“I think I’ll call you Cygnus,” Chelsea said. “The swan?” I said. A bit precious, but it could have been worse. She… — Peter Watts Black hole Copy Share Image
You are. I'm just fatalistically cheerful. We all come into the story halfway through, we all catch up as best we can,… — Peter Watts Cheerful Copy Share Image
There's no such things as survival of the fittest. Survival of the most adequate, maybe. It doesn't matter whether a solution's optimal.… — Peter Watts Copy Share Image
“(At least one theory suggests that while great apes and adult Humans are sentient, young Human children are not. I admit to… — Peter Watts Apes Copy Share Image
“Truth had never been a priority. If believing a lie kept the genes proliferating, the system would believe that lie with all… — Peter Watts Faith Copy Share Image
“You know what happens when you keep a dog locked away from every living thing, except you visit once a day and… — Peter Watts Animal Copy Share Image
“Nowadays it seemed like half the technical data on the planet were being stored genetically. Try sequencing a lung fluke and it… — Peter Watts Evolution Copy Share Image
“You can’t kill the thing under the bed. You can only keep it outside the covers.” — Peter Watts Copy Share Image
Tools exist for only one reason: to force the universe into unnatural shapes — Peter Watts Physics Copy Share Image
“The game is never over; there's no finish line this side of heat death.” — Peter Watts Death Copy Share Image
“But then I remembered: the universe was closed, and so very small. There was really nowhere else to go.” — Peter Watts Claustrophobia Copy Share Image
“Planck length and Planck time had always looked a bit too much like pixel dimensions for comfort.” — Peter Watts Planck Copy Share Image
“We were all in it together, of course, desperate to regain some hypothetical upper hand by any means necessary.” — Peter Watts Copy Share Image
What's the difference between being dead, and just not knowing you're alive? — Peter Watts Alive Copy Share Image
“You can’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to wallow in the sheer beauty of language .” — Peter Watts Beauty Copy Share Image
“The longer it takes me to track you down, the more hope you have of escaping.” — Peter Watts Copy Share Image
“The math was irrefutable: The one winning strategy was concealment. Only fools revealed their birthdays.” — Peter Watts Birthday Copy Share Image
“What is Human history, if not an ongoing succession of greater technologies grinding lesser ones beneath their boots?” — Peter Watts History Copy Share Image
“ALL ANIMALS ARE UNDER STRINGENT SELECTION PRESSURE TO BE AS STUPID AS THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH. —PETE RICHERSON AND ROBERT BOYD” — Peter Watts Animals Copy Share Image
“People simply can’t accept that patterns carry their own intelligence, quite apart from the semantic content that clings to their surfaces; if… — Peter Watts Along for the ride Copy Share Image
