“They survive. Ah yes, survive. And achieve nothing to deserve it.”

“The only meaning of life, if it can be said to have meaning, is to survive. My brothers and sisters, herding their children on the plains, find meaning in the simple pattern of their lives and need nothing more. They are immersed in the processes of the world: all is one. That is their religion. They seek no other meaning.
“Your race, now, believes that expansion is all. You think to outrace your dark destiny, believe that the whole universe is yours when you understand so little of it.”

Chapter 4 “At the Core” (p. 271)
Four Hundred Billion Stars (1988)

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Paul J. McAuley 11
British writer 1955

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