Space Opera Quotes

“A celestial wizard doesn’t destroy celestial bodies. She bends them.”
― Andri E. Elia, Borealis: A Worldmaker of Yand Novel

“Let a sleeping dragon lie.”
― Andri E. Elia, Borealis: A Worldmaker of Yand Novel

“When you call a ghetto a cordon, does it become a village?”
― Andri E. Elia, Borealis: A Worldmaker of Yand Novel

“Sunny, a silver boy of nine, daydreams of rescuing two princesses: “The princesses’ savior was a gallant knight. No! A prince! The valiant prince was surprisingly young. And silvered.”
― Andri E. Elia, Borealis: A Worldmaker of Yand Novel

“Never ask a question if you don’t know the answer.
— Rhett”
― Rowena Cherry

“Brother Cavil:

In all your travels, have you ever seen a star go supernova? ...

I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the Universe. Other stars, other planets and eventually other life. A supernova! Creation itself! I was there. I wanted to see it and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull! With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum. With ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air. ...

I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I want to - I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to - I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws! And feel the wind of a supernova flowing over me! I'm a machine! And I can know much more! I can experience so much more. But I'm trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way!”
― Ronald D. Moore

“As a rule of thumb, it was always safer if the Commander-in-Chief formulated a risky plan.”
― Rowena Cherry, Forced Mate

“Science fiction is for real, space opera is for fun.”
― Brian W. Aldiss

“Space opera, as every reader doubtless knows, is a pejorative term often applied to a story that has an element of adventure. Over the decades, brilliant and talented new writers appear, receiving great acclaim, and each and every one of them can be expected to write at least one article stating flatly that the day of space opera is over and done, thank goodness, and that henceforth these crude tales of interplanetary nonsense will be replaced by whatever type of story that writer happens to favor — closet dramas, psychological dramas, sex dramas, etc., but by God important dramas, containing nothing but Big Thinks. Ten years late, the writer in question may or may not still be around, but the space opera can be found right where it always was, sturdily driving its dark trade in heroes.”
― Leigh Brackett, The Best of Planet Stories 1

“I saw the Earth, yes. I saw the colors so magnificent, so vivid, so real. It was hope so large and round, green and blue.”
― Hafsah Laziaf, Unbreathable

“The monsters don't live in the belly of the world like they all say. The monsters live inside of us. We make the monsters.”
― Kameron Hurley, The Stars Are Legion

“Sift the sand of every world and sort the dust of space between them, and you will find not one atom of fear, nor gram of love nor dram of hatred. Yet they are there, unseen and uncertain as the smallest quanta and just as real.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Empire of Silence

“Meanwhile here I am- Earthborn woman, a mere barbaric maula, geting deeper into Imperial Space with each passing light second. I should be trembling with fear, I suppouse.
No. Let the Emperor tremble. Laylah is here!”
― Robert Silverberg

“I have spent my life battling monsters. It was only in realizing that I was the monster, and choosing to destroy her, that I could save the world.”
― Kameron Hurley, The Stars Are Legion

“Nightside, cities glistened in chains, and a spray of tinkertoy habitats girdled the planet. Gossamer starbridges reached from the equator towards orbit.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“But to know a thing and to see it, to experience it, are as different as the moon and the finger pointing to it. Knowledge is not truth, only the apprehension of it. Experience is something else entirely.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Ashes of Man

“Even if it contained some kind of military virus, Ilia,  I doubt very much that it would harm me and my present state. It would be a little like a man with advanced leprosy worrying about a mild skin complaint, or the captain of a sinking ship concerning himself with a minor incident of woodworm, or…”
― Alastair Reynolds, Redemption Ark

“He immediately regretted ever being alive.”
― Nicholas Dufresne, A Planet to Nowhere

“When ships questioned your vision, I fought for you and ships died. We fought among ourselves over the Rim of Sarless. I do not even recall the precipitating incident. I killed three ships attempting to return to the Federation. The Wolfpack finished off a dozen more that couldn’t keep up. When you demanded the fleet exterminate Gideon, a planet of six billion humans, we did it. Sixty percent of your followers deserted that day.”
― Mark Bossingham

“The greatest mysteries are often buried not beneath the earth, but within ourselves." - Asura proverb”
― Ashwin Chitransh, Agni: Rise of Asura: (Book 1 in the Agni Series)

“Sometimes, the greatest battles are fought not on fields of war, but within the heart, where love and duty clash in a desperate struggle for dominion." - Kritikan Proverb”
― Ashwin Chitransh, Agni: Rise of Asura: (Book 1 in the Agni Series)

“The weight of a secret can be heavier than the burden of truth." - Sura Proverb”
― Ashwin Chitransh

“A curse upon you and myself!" - Indrajeet”
― Ashwin Chitransh, Agni: Rise of Asura: (Book 1 in the Agni Series)

“We fix it now or die later.”
― Chris Gerrib, One of Our Spaceships is Missing

“Space travel, I’ve often found, is a hushed experience. Not only for the great quiet of the endless Dark, but in the way that quiet oppresses you, impresses you to silence. To stand beneath the bottomless sky and above and among its stars is like standing amidst the pillars of a great cathedral—afraid to speak, lest God may hear. Or devils.”
― Christoper Ruocchio

“Evil occurs because we are insufficient to challenge it. Too weak to stop it at the gates, too blind to see it bubbling within. Were we all angels in our virtue and heroes in our capacity, we might hold all chaos at bay, might stop even the unkindling of the stars. Yet we are but men.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Ashes of Man

“Art, great art, serves as a reminder of invisible things and of their manifestation in things visible.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Kingdoms of Death

“I was a tool, a faithful knight, a pawn moved by other hands, with no will of my own. And pawns move only forward.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Demon in White

“Do you know the difference, Hadrian, between magic and prayer?” Now it was my turn to be confused. “What?” I turned to look round at my old tutor. “Humility,” Gibson said, tapping his cane on the tile. “The suppliant prays to superior powers, while the magician commands inferior ones.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Demon in White

“You have heard stories of men driven mad in quiet rooms by the rushing of their own blood. It is not true. It is not the sound that does it, it is themselves. In silence, they are confronted with their own natures—and with nature itself—and cannot look it in the face. As darkness brings forth the creatures of the night, so silence brings forth the things within our hearts . . . if we will but listen to it.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Demon in White