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e9c44a3
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I sold my soul for knowledge of the future, only to have that very pact render me forever ignorant (Gerald Tarrant).
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pact
soul
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C.S. Friedman |
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9b8db17
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Civilized man longs for the illusion of barbarism. Either his culture fulfills this need by adopting its outer trappings, or he will be seduced by his first contact with a culture that does.
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sci-fi
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C.S. Friedman |
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b4b198c
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What is a child?" he asks her. The diamond gaze does not flinch. "Creatures that are sold on the street by their parents, to get the coin to make more children." She paused. "Adults sell themselves."
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C.S. Friedman |
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c8bcd1c
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Tomorrow could not get better if one failed to survive today.
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C.S. Friedman |
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6777b95
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anger of any kind is a dangerous emotion, it eats at the nerves and eventually makes you careless
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C.S. Friedman |
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83b3979
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There is no such thing as redemption, my friend. There is right, there is wrong, and there are a million shades of color between the two. Once you've done wrong, it is always with you. You just have to try and be better.
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C.S. Friedman |
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0c7e1c6
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All data leaves a trail. The search for data leaves a trail. The erasure of data leaves a trail. The absence of data, under the right circumstances, can leave the clearest trail of all.
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C.S. Friedman |
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829fa9e
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The more complex our security becomes, the more complex our enemy's efforts must be. The more we seek to shut him out, the better he must learn to become at breaking in. Each new level of security that we manage becomes no more than a stepping-stone for him who would surpass us, for he bases his next assault upon our best defenses. It is a ware that can never truly be won... but one we dare not lose.
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C.S. Friedman |
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3049f6c
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In a world where data is coin of the realm, and transmissions are guarded by no better sentinels than man-made codes and corruptible devices, there is no such thing as a secret.
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C.S. Friedman |
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ee57176
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The Tyr had tried. It had really tried. It must have gone over every element of human psychology, tried desperately to understand the nature of human aesthetic sense ... and then failed, miserably, in every regard.
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irony
scifi
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C.S. Friedman |
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781a9e2
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We share need, not-human. Yours is straightforward." ... "Mine is less so, but you will serve it. Come."
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great-quote
understatements
scifi
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C.S. Friedman |
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31617dc
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Look," she told me. "A good kreda is very hard to find. I invested a lot of time and memory in you. I had no intention of giving all that up, just because you were going to be in a bad mood for a decade or two."
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C.S. Friedman |
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605ca05
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He'd once had to fight off a pack of ghouls in below-zero weather with nothing on but a pair of socks, and it wasn't an experience he was anxious to repeat. He
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C.S. Friedman |
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c57bcf2
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Morality is the constant of human existence.
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C.S. Friedman |
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b7d2041
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All about us were people. Perhaps a hundred. Men. Experience had taught me that humans were cruelest when segregated by sex, and the cold feeling in the pit of my stomach became led. What had I let myself in for?
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dark
fear
short-sentences
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C.S. Friedman |
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8268efe
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My identity is without root.
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scifi
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C.S. Friedman |
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181c1cc
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Only in summer-phase is it carnivorous." If there was an award for understatement, I thought, the Tyr would trounce all competition."
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understatements
scifi
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C.S. Friedman |
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733eb0c
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It struck Hsing suddenly that Masada didn't even understand the nature of his own genius. To him the patterns of thought and motive that he sensed in the virus were self-explanatory, and those who could not see them were simply not looking hard enough. Yet he would readily admit to his own inability to analyze more human contact, even on the most basic level. That was part and parcel of being iru. What a strange combination of skills and fl..
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C.S. Friedman |
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f3d3f26
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Fear would come in time, no doubt, but that did not mean she had to issue it a formal invitation.
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C.S. Friedman |
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fd6e0e2
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An uninspired ruler works to develop those relationships which will be most to his advantage. A great ruler determines the most desirable relationships and assumes them into being.
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C.S. Friedman |
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0809537
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I stood balanced on the brink of madness. Insanity and longevity are a truly terrifying combination; if I gave in now, I might pay the price for centuries to come.
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C.S. Friedman |
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19ffde8
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God save us from an Earth in which all men are the same. God save us from a colony where that is the goal, or a culture which assumes that for its norm. Give me a thousand people speaking different tongues, worshiping different gods, and dreaming different dreams, and I will make of them a greater nation than you can make with ten thousand of your gengineered duplicates. For mine will have the spark of greatness in them, while yours will li..
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C.S. Friedman |
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04ea40c
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Few watched the human homeworld as she did, which meant there were fewer rivals for her harvests. Her predations. Reijik Station, she mused. Her fingers twitched in their plasteel cage as she wondered what manner of feast this harvest might provide.
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C.S. Friedman |
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5bb8dbf
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He was good at ignoring things; it was a skill all iru had. A lifetime of dealing with senses that tended to go haywire had taught him how to shut down the part of his awareness that was causing irritation.
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C.S. Friedman |
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717824c
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I dreamed of a beast in human form, that hunted men for pleasure. When they brought it down--at last, after many deaths--they cut it open. Only to find a wormlike thing coiled in a bed of slime at the center of it, where the heart should be, and a webwork of puppeteer's strings leading outward through the flesh. I screamed.
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C.S. Friedman |
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1962047
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Evil is what you make of it, the Prophet had written. Bind it to a higher Purpose, and you will have altered its nature. And: We use what tools we must. Damien
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C.S. Friedman |
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495ab7c
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The gods, he knows now, will not help mankind. If they even exist--which he is no longer certain of--it is clear they do not care what happens. Perhaps they will even applaud when the last monuments of the Second Age of Kings crumble to dust, and the men who once worshiped them are reduced to the level of beasts. Perhaps that is what they intended all along.
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C.S. Friedman |
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ada7abd
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Let me tell you the tale of a poet who hanged himself with promises. . . .
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C.S. Friedman |
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1161a03
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Let every government see to it that each child is implanted with the tools it needs to communicate, calculate, and process data. Let each government make sure that rich and poor alike, dirtborn and outworlder, Terran and Variant, all have equal access to the outernet and its resources. Let them do that, and we will see something the galaxy has never seen before: a time of true equality, unequaled prosperity, and the kind of conceptual innov..
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C.S. Friedman |
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b9fa0a8
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The more I think about it, the more it frightens me." "So why are you getting involved?" He shut his eyes. "So I can look at myself in the mirror again. And know that I did my best."
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C.S. Friedman |
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36c875a
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Sometimes the decision is placed in your hands and you just have to go with it, right or wrong, according to what you think is best.
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C.S. Friedman |
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2ce2ac0
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I was aesthetically impressed but failed to understand the importance of it. Unfortunately, Braxana do not express ignorance; therefore I couldn't ask, "What is it?" as directly as I would have liked. After a moment I looked up at him, the elevation of one eyebrow indicating that I was intrigued enough to hear what he had come to say."
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C.S. Friedman |
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e19c3cd
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What is true genius, if not the perfect balance of inspiration and perseverence? CHEULGU KIM Ancient Truths for a New Age
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C.S. Friedman |
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e36ebe8
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To Kaimera Lord Zatar, Zarvati, son of Vinir and K'siva From the Elders of the Holding The Elders respectfully remind you that it is required of each purebred Braxana male that he sire four registered purebred children during his lifetime. While we recognize that you are still young in age, your involvement in the War forces us to consider the possibility that you may not enjoy the full life expectancy of the Braxana. Therefore we urge yo..
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C.S. Friedman |
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dec1e91
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Connecting to the outernet was less of a shock this time, as the monitor gave him a sense of distance from it, but it was still annoying. How did these people live with such a system, stalked by advertisements and "free" offers and icons that would take you to another site, unasked-for, the moment you gave them your attention? It was like wending your way through an obstacle course. Perhaps after a while you just learned to tune it all out...
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marketing
cyberpunk
communication
internet
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C.S. Friedman |
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a54f090
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Amazing, is it not, that in the face of death we hunger for distraction, and are wont to focus on other things, trivial things, as a means of not acknowledging our danger....
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C.S. Friedman |
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55d9e7d
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Anzha was trapped in someone else's dream. Such a thing didn't happen often, but it happened. Intensity of emotion meant intensity of contact; in the close confines of the Institute, where hundreds of psychics lived, worked, and trained together, it was to be expected that occasionally two dreamers would come insync (as the Institute termed it) and share the same sleep-bound fantasies. The
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C.S. Friedman |
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f57f092
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And love?" she asked him. "What is love?" He smiled faintly. "Data of the heart." --
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C.S. Friedman |
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a51e956
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We are such cold creatures, all of us. Power robs us of our humanity. It's an ancient formula, hard-wired into our brain cells, and any attempt to circumvent it is an exercise in futility.
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C.S. Friedman |
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7c02622
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Those who support the concept of a direct interface network don't take into account the price they would have to pay for it, in privacy and safety and a thousand other areas of concern. Do you really want a machine to know where you are every minute of the day? Do you really trust the people who design these things, and program them, enough to let their work directly into your head? Don't you realize that every time you let this creature co..
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C.S. Friedman |
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00c6766
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At any given time there were more than a billion transmissions buzzing through that darkness, chronicling everything from a grandchild's first words to the kind of secrets that could unseat governments. Jewels in the darkness.
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C.S. Friedman |
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c10fd73
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The iru only seemed more alien than most to him because he was nantana, and all the signals of tone and movement which he relied upon for social intercourse were absent in such a man. Or distorted. Or exaggerated. You couldn't even try to read such a man beyond the surface, you just took his words at face value and tried not to look any deeper.
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C.S. Friedman |
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726bc16
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The manner in which a man lies can sometimes reveal more of his nature than the truth. C. J. AMBERLEIGH, The Art of Inquisition
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C.S. Friedman |
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2abc517
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Was there ever a generation that didn't enjoy shocking its elders in public? Was there ever a world where adults didn't shake their heads in frustration, annoyed by the antics of the young, but unable to stop them?
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C.S. Friedman |