The past is a distraction, a source of envy, enmity, bitterness. Only the present matters, for only in the present can we shape the future. Cut loose the past; it is dead weight. Let the Extirpation continue. Let it never end. Stephen Baxter More Quotes by Stephen Baxter More Quotes From Stephen Baxter When you get close enough to someone you're never really alone again. Stephen Baxter enough A citizen of the Roman Empire, for example, would have placed less value on individual liberty in the modern Western sense than on collective responsibility. Stephen Baxter liberty example responsibility When you realize that you are an eternal being, you will laugh at things that used to give you anxiety attacks. Stephen Baxter anxiety giving laughing The Long Earth is bountiful but not forgiving. Stephen Baxter forgiving earth long Imagine God inside your computer, your phone, everyone else's computer. Imagine someone who almost is the Black Corporation, with all its power and riches and reach. And who, despite all this, seems pretty sane and beneficent by the standards of most gods. Oh, and who sometimes swears in Tibetan. Stephen Baxter corporations black phones We do teach our kids the golden rule - Do as you would be done by. Stephen Baxter done would-be kids Authority. The antithesis of science. Stephen Baxter antithesis authority We ought to call ourselves Homo clamorans. Noisemaking man. Stephen Baxter ought men In the Vortex that lies beyond time and space tumbled a police box that was not a police box. Stephen Baxter police space lying We seem to be young, in a very old Galaxy. We're like kids tiptoeing through a ruined mansion. Stephen Baxter ruined young kids