“Neither of us said a word as we picked our way down the path for the next quarter of an hour, and the sky receded to a deep violet. I had the illusion that, as it got darker, it moved away from us, expanding like a bubble, rushing away at a million light-years an hour, and as it whooshed past stars, we began to see them.”

—  Neal Stephenson , book Anathem

Part 8, "Orithena"
Anathem (2008)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Neither of us said a word as we picked our way down the path for the next quarter of an hour, and the sky receded to a …" by Neal Stephenson?
Neal Stephenson photo
Neal Stephenson 167
American science fiction writer 1959

Related quotes

Carlo Rovelli photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“We Shadowhunters, we put ourselves in danger, every hour, every day. I think sometimes we are reckless with our hearts the way we are with our lives. When we give them away, we give every piece.”

Variant: I think sometimes we are reckless with our hearts the way we are with our lives. When we give them away, we give every piece. And if we do not get what we so desperately need, how do we live?
Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Jack Kerouac photo
Luis de Góngora photo

“The hours will hardly forgive you, those hours that are wearing away the days, those days that are gnawing away the years.”

Luis de Góngora (1561–1627) Spanish Baroque lyric poet

Mal te perdonarán a ti las horas;
las horas que limando están los días,
los días que royendo están los años.
"De la brevedad engañosa de la vida", line 12, cited from J. M. Cohen (ed.) The Penguin Book of Spanish Verse (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962) p. 278. Translation from the same source.

Nguyễn Du photo

“Heaven grants us this hour: now from our gate
all mists have cleared; on high, clouds roll away.”

Source: The Tale of Kiều (1813), Lines 3121–3122; quoted by Joe Biden, while welcoming Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in Washington (July 2015), as reported in "The Tale of Kieu, lotus and the US President" by Bui Hoang Tam, dtinews.vn (25 May 2016) http://dtinews.vn/en/news/027/45323/the-tale-of-kieu--lotus-and-the-us-president.html: "Thank heaven we are here today, to see the sun through parting fog and clouds."

Whittaker Chambers photo
Alexander Smith photo

“I drifted for what felt like hours. Neither of us spoke; we knew better. Peace like this came rarely and was as fragile as a child's smile.”

John Hart (1965) American author with multiple books and awards

Source: The King of Lies (2006), Ch. 8.

Alan Bean photo

“Everyone is trying to reach for their own stars, and all of those stars aren’t light-years away. They are as close as our job, our family, our children, our next-door neighbors and our good friends.”

Alan Bean (1932–2018) American astronaut and painter

Statement on significations in his painting "Reaching for the Stars", at the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, Florida, USA.
After the moon, art is his mission (1997)

Related topics