The Expanse Quotes

“Reputation never has very much to do with reality. I could name half a dozen paragons of virtue that are horrible, small-souled, evil people. And some of the best men I know, you'd walk out of the room if you heard their names. No one on the screen is who they are when you breathe their air.
Chrisjen Avasarala”
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban’s War

“The ancient, animal story, the same whether it was on a spinning rock surrounded by hard vacuum or the stamp-sized chimpanzee preserves on Earth. Even in the Belt, youth brought invulnerability, immortality, the unshakable conviction that for you, things would be different. The laws of physics would cut you a break, the missiles would never hit, the air would never hiss out into nothing. Maybe for other people—the patched-together fighting ships of the OPA, the water haulers, the Martian gunships, the Scopuli, the Canterbury, the Donnager, the hundred other ships that had died in small actions since the system had turned itself into a battlefield—but not you.”
― James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes

“Chapter Five: Elvi
A few decades earlier and about two hundred thousand trillion kilometers from where she currently sat, a tiny node of active protomolecule in a biological matrix had entered the orbit of a planet called Ilus, hitchhiking on the gunship Rocinante.
As the uncanny semisentient intelligence of the protomolecule tried to make contact with other nodes in the gate builders’ long-dead empire, it woke up mechanisms that had been dormant for millions—or even billions—of years. The end result had been an ancient factory returning to life, a massive robot attack, the melting of one artificial moon, and the detonation of a power plant that nearly cracked the planet in two.
All in all, a really shitty experience.
So when Elvi’s team took the catalyst out of isolation in unexplored systems to do a similar if slightly better-controlled reaching out to the artifacts and remains (..)
Tiamat's Wrath”
― James S.A. Corey, Tiamat's Wrath

“Chapter Fourteen: Teresa
“Your dad’s kind of an asshole,” Timothy said, his expression philosophical, his voice matter-of-fact. “And he’s killed a lot more people than Holden ever did.”
Tiamat's Wrath”
― James S.A. Corey, Tiamat's Wrath

“Chapter Fifteen: Naomi
As they left, the chief engineer looked back. His eyes met hers. There was a in them.”
― James S.A. Corey, Tiamat's Wrath

“The more you share, the more your bowl will be plentiful.”
― James S.A. Corey

“This is how these people work! They made the Canterbury look like Mars. It wasn’t. They made the Donnager look like the Belt. It wasn’t. Now it looks like the whole damn thing’s Earth? Follow the pattern. It probably isn’t! You never, never put that kind of accusation out there until you know the score. You look. You listen. You’re quiet, fercrissakes, and when you know, then you can make your case.”
― James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes

“Dying she could handle. Dying without any answers seemed terribly cruel.”
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban’s War

“They’d made a fool of her. She should have been humiliated. Instead, she felt alive. This was her game, and if she was behind at halftime, it only meant they expected her to lose. There was nothing better than being underestimated.”
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban’s War

“That’s the game I play. You never win. You just don’t lose yet.”
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban’s War

“The people who have power over you are weak too. They shit and bleed and worry that their children don’t love them anymore. They’re embarrassed by the stupid things they did when they were young that everyone else has forgotten. And so they’re vulnerable.”
― James S.A. Corey, Tiamat's Wrath

“Being young was undignified. Being young and in love was worse.”
― James S.A. Corey, Babylon’s Ashes

“No, he was angry because he wanted to help more, and he couldn't. Knowing that all you can give isn't enough is its own burden. That was all.”
― James S.A. Corey, Babylon’s Ashes

“Chapter Nineteen: Elvi
We just lost two gates, Admiral. And one of them had an entire world filled with people behind it.”
Tiamat's Wrath”
― James S.A. Corey, Tiamat's Wrath

“We aren’t workin’ the ship for money, or because a government drafted us. We’re here because we want to be. That’s all you’ve got over us. We believe in the cause, and we want to be part of what you’re doing. The minute we lose that, we might as well take a real payin’ job.”
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban’s War

“Going down in a fight’s one thing. I can be proud of that. But just getting out to get out. I can’t do that.”
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban’s War

“Mostly I’m a mechanic. But the idea that the UN has a file on me somewhere that lists me as the Rocinante’s killer? That’s kind of awesome.”
― James S.A. Corey, Nemesis Games

“Anything worth encrypting is worth not putting on a network in the first place.”
― James S.A. Corey, Persepolis Rising

“Part of why I am what I am is all the bad choices my mom and dad made, and if they’d done differently, they’d still have made some mistakes somewhere along the line, and those would be part of me instead.”
― James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Falls

“She could no more pick out the light of its death than pluck a particular molecule of salt from the ocean, but she knew it was there, and the fact was like a stone in her belly.”
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban’s War

“Naomi smiled. Laughed. It was strange how it made the darkness better. Not less dark. Just better, even though it still was what it was.”
― James S.A. Corey, Babylon’s Ashes

“Anna had to resist the urge to try to draw him out, ask him where he lived, who his parents were, how he liked his classes. She was always impatient to help people, even when they weren't ready to be helped. Maybe especially then.”
― James S.A. Corey, Babylon’s Ashes

“You're a tough guy, but I'm a nightmare wrapped in the apocalypse.”
― James S.A. Corey, Gods of Risk

“I just don't want to mess things up," she said. "What if we mess things up for him?"
"We will, though. No one's perfect. Everyone's carrying something that their parents would have done differently if they'd known. Or if they'd been better people. Or if things had just been different. That's all right. It's normal. Part of why I am what I am is all the bad choices my mom and dad made, and if they'd done differently, they'd still have made some mistakes somewhere along the line, and those would be part of me instead. They weren't perfect, and we aren't perfect."
"He is though."
"He is, isn't he?”
― James S. A. Corey