Top 250 Becky Chambers Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “And for the first time ever, I didn’t want a brother anymore, because I finally had one.”

— Becky Chambers

102. “Was there any day for her that would not involve the same schedule, the same faces, the same tasks? What was better –a constant safeness that never grew and never changed, or a life of reaching, building, striving, even though you knew you’d never be completely satisfied?”

— Becky Chambers

103. “Tea was a moody drink.”

— Becky Chambers

104. “If you know what you’d like – ’ ‘I do.’ Pepper nodded seriously. ‘I’d like the left side of the menu, please.”

— Becky Chambers

105. “They figure that big, deep feelings are universal enough to be defined with just a flick of the hand.”

— Becky Chambers

106. “Academic prowess and base intelligence are two separate things.”

— Becky Chambers

107. “Want and intelligence,’ the historian had written, ’is a dangerous combination.”

— Becky Chambers

108. “Getting lost wasn’t what scared her, exactly. It was more the prospect of getting mugged. Or harassed. Or stabbed. She’d seen a few people that definitely looked stabby.”

— Becky Chambers

109. “The thrusters roared, and Jane was aware of how small she was – she and Laurian both. So small, so squishy. They’d strapped themselves into this explosive hunk of scrap and aimed for the sky. How was this a good idea? How had anyone ever thought this was a good idea?”

— Becky Chambers

110. “But you’re probably the first Humans they’ve ever seen, and I don’t want them to grow up thinking your species is stupid.”

— Becky Chambers

111. “That must save them a lot of time,’ said Rosemary, wondering how much of her life had been spent trying to find the right words in difficult conversations.”

— Becky Chambers

112. “You don’t have to have a reason to be tired. You don’t have to earn rest or comfort. You’re allowed to just be.”

— Becky Chambers

113. “There are few things as unsettling as a lack of control in an unfamiliar situation.”

— Becky Chambers

114. “All the things I’ve done to my body, I’ve done out of love.”

— Becky Chambers

115. “I am seventy-nine years old. If I want dessert twice... I get dessert twice.”

— Becky Chambers

116. “They were reminders of what a fragile thing it was to be alive.”

— Becky Chambers

117. “Viewed in this way, you can never again see a tree as a single entity, despite its visual dominance. It towers. It’s impressive. But in the end, it’s a fragile endeavour that can only stand thanks to the contributions of many. We celebrate the tree that stretches to the sky, but it is the ground we should ultimately thank.”

— Becky Chambers

118. “There are few better ways to get to know how a species thinks than to learn their art.”

— Becky Chambers

119. “Archivists were passionate people, some of whom dedicated their whole lives to the pursuit of unbiased truth. Given the wealth of information that needed sorting through, professional archivists relied heavily upon volunteers to help keep public files current. Rosemary had always imagined them like guardians from some fantasy vid, defending the galaxy from inaccuracies and questionable data. ‘What.”

— Becky Chambers

120. “Our species doesn’t operate by reality. It operates by stories.”

— Becky Chambers

121. “Rarely in history had things turned out well for people who chose to lock themselves away.”

— Becky Chambers

122. “Humans reacted differently to coupling than she did. Didn’t their brains get overloaded with chemicals afterwards, way more than normal people?”

— Becky Chambers

123. “How else could you explain a sapient species that had overpopulated itself to the point of environmental collapse? This was a people that had coupled themselves stupid.”

— Becky Chambers

124. “Rosemary thought of what Lovey said if you gave her one task too many: I’m sorry, but that’ll have to wait a moment. If I put anything more in my databanks, my processing streams will stall. And I hate that.”

— Becky Chambers

125. “Ohan, as your doctor, I have to remind you that your body has only had to digest nutrient paste for some time, adopting other foods will take some adjustment.′ His cheeks puffed wide. ‘But as your – as your friend, there is no way I’d rather spend my afternoon than cooking a meal for you. With you, even, if you’d like.”

— Becky Chambers

126. “Crown shyness is so striking, don’t you think?”

— Becky Chambers

127. “We exist where we begin, yet to remain is death.”

— Becky Chambers

128. “No good can come from a species at war with itself.”

— Becky Chambers

129. “There was organisation at work, but clutter, too. The mark of a logical mind that sometimes strayed.”

— Becky Chambers

130. “The point of a family, he’d always thought, was to enjoy the experience of bringing something new into the universe, passing on your knowledge and seeing part of yourself live on.”

— Becky Chambers

131. “You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don’t need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live. That is all most animals do.”

— Becky Chambers

132. “We’re meant to go. And we’re meant to stay. Stay and go, each as much as the other. It’s not all or nothing anymore. We’re all over the place. That’s better, I think. That’s smarter.’ He nodded. ‘That’s how we’ll survive, even if not all of us do.”

— Becky Chambers

133. “A complicated job, but not a taxing one, and one where you could count on most days going exactly the way you’d thought they’d go when you woke up. Compared to the constant familial chaos of home, she valued that.”

— Becky Chambers

134. “Humans wasted so much time by being redundant.”

— Becky Chambers

135. “Everybody thinks they’re the exception to the rule, and that’s exactly where the trouble starts. One person can do a lot of damage.”

— Becky Chambers

136. “A reliable device built to last a lifetime, as all computers were.”

— Becky Chambers

137. “He could hear the amusement in her voice. It was the sound of the look she’d been wearing for the past ten minutes.”

— Becky Chambers

138. “You could live your whole life in one of those cities and never know how ugly it was somewhere else.”

— Becky Chambers

139. “Mosscap considered. “Because I know that no matter what, I’m wonderful,” it said.”

— Becky Chambers

140. “Blue turned the bottle to the back label. Ingredients: Whatever we could grow this year, plus water.”

— Becky Chambers

141. “The Friends of Digital Sapients were one of those organisations that had their hearts in the right place but their heads firmly up their asses.”

— Becky Chambers

142. “In many ways, the idea of a shared stock of genes drifting through the galaxy is far easier to accept than the daunting notion that none of us may ever have the intellectual capacity to understand how life truly works.”

— Becky Chambers

143. “You break rules all the time.’ ‘I break laws. That’s different.”

— Becky Chambers

144. “You understand. I wish you didn’t, because I know it means you’re as tangled up as I am, but... I’m grateful that you do.”

— Becky Chambers

145. “Without constructs, you will unravel few mysteries. Without knowledge of the mysteries, your constructs will fail. These pursuits are what make us, but without comfort, you will lack the strength to sustain either.”

— Becky Chambers

146. “And to that end, welcome comfort, for without it, you cannot stay strong.”

— Becky Chambers

147. “For anybody who could use a break.”

— Becky Chambers

148. “I cannot tell you what a constant relief it is, even decades after I left, to be in places where I can say something like that freely.’ Speaker had a word for how she felt right then: eerekere. A moment of vulnerable understanding between strangers.”

— Becky Chambers

149. “Scared means we want to live.”

— Becky Chambers

150. “Building takes many, many mistakes.”

— Becky Chambers