Yoon Ha Lee

The problem with authority is that if you leave it lying around, others will take it away from you.

All communication is manipulation, Jedao said. You’re a mathematician. You should know that from information theory.

In space there are no seasons, and this is as true of the ships that cross the distances between humanity's far-flung homes. But we measure our seasons anyway: by a smile, a silence, a song.

But then, war is about taking the future away from people.

The silence could have swallowed a star.

I’m not a linguist, but do you ever think there’s something wrong with the things we do and don’t have words for?

There are too many shapes of love to be counted. One of them is forgiveness.

She said you are not the sum of your loyalties, you are the sum of your choices.

What was a shadow, after all, but a shape in the moving world reduced to a projection of possibilities?

The point of war is to rig the deck, drug the opponent, and threaten to kneecap their family if they don't fold.