Top 200 Martha Wells Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “I’ll give you one more answer. The words Bashasa spoke to me before he died were ‘Don’t let everything we fought for be for nothing.”

— Martha Wells

202. “There needs to be an error code that means “I received your request but decided to ignore you.”

— Martha Wells

203. “I had stopped watching it when the mutants dragged off the group’s biologist to eat him. Seriously, this was exactly the kind of situation I was designed to prevent.”

— Martha Wells

204. “The Cordans believed the women needed men to provide for them; Moon had no idea why. He knew that Selis in particular was perfectly capable of chasing down any number of grasseaters and beating them to death with a club, so he didn’t see why she couldn’t hunt for herself.”

— Martha Wells

205. “Once I started telling the truth, it was hard to stop.”

— Martha Wells

206. “The problem with gunships is they want to shoot at stuff.”

— Martha Wells

207. “Mother bared her fangs. “Stop being overdramatic.” Kai would have loved to, if dramatic things would stop happening to him.”

— Martha Wells

208. “He looked up to see Ranea staring at him, her eyes brilliant with rage. She said, “You did this.” “No. I was here.” In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have smiled when he said it.”

— Martha Wells

209. “No, I impersonated my client. My imaginary client. That I impersonated.” I was caught in a loop for a second there.”

— Martha Wells

210. “Ship might be unresponsive but it was doing its best and I didn’t want it to hurt.”

— Martha Wells

211. “I hadn’t looked at the maps yet and I’d barely looked at the survey package. In my defense, we’d been here twenty-two planetary days and I hadn’t had to do anything but stand around watching humans make scans or take samples of dirt, rocks, water, and leaves. The sense of urgency just wasn’t there. Also, you may have noticed, I don’t care.”

— Martha Wells

212. “Along with the horror of what had just happened, there had been the dawning realization that they had fallen into thinking of their SecUnit as a faceless machine, a convenience, an interface with their security system. But it had taken a sentient being who understood fear and pain to talk its way through Volescu’s blind terror.”

— Martha Wells

213. “I have extracted living clients from situations that were less than nine percent survivable. I’m more than qualified to make that call.”

— Martha Wells

214. “You know, if you don’t want to be manually eviscerated with your own energy weapon then maybe you shouldn’t go around killing research transports and antagonizing rogue SecUnits.”

— Martha Wells

215. “If the humans see me actually doing my job, it helps keep suspicions from forming about faulty governor modules.”

— Martha Wells

216. “Human security had literally just noticed that something had tried to steal their client’s head.”

— Martha Wells

217. “I had cycled out of horrified that they wanted to talk to me about my feelings into grateful that she had ordered them not to.”

— Martha Wells

218. “That’s mostly a metaphor. My uneaten client stat is high.”

— Martha Wells

219. “I had only taken three projectiles to the right shoulder, four to the left hip. This is how we fight: throw ourselves at each other and see whose parts give out first.”

— Martha Wells

220. “I just realized I don’t like the phrase “as far as I knew” because it implies how much you actually don’t know. I’m not going to stop using it, but. I don’t like it as much anymore.”

— Martha Wells

221. “It looked very unrealistic and inaccurate, which was exactly what I liked.”

— Martha Wells

222. “I didn’t need as much air as humans did, but I needed some, and it was really cold out there, in the colony ship’s shadow. This meant that if the life-tender failed it would take me longer to die so I’d have longer to feel dumb about it than a human would.”

— Martha Wells

223. “Data suggests family dramas bear a less than 10 percent resemblance to actual human families, which is unsurprising and also a relief, considering all the murders. In the dramas, not Mensah’s family.”

— Martha Wells

224. “Self-determination was a pain in the ass sometimes but it beat the alternative by a lot.”

— Martha Wells

225. “I don’t like planets. There’s dust and weather, and something always wants to eat the humans.”

— Martha Wells

226. “I had a plan, but it was mostly “keep the hostiles off the ship,” which is not so much a plan as a statement of hopeful intent.”

— Martha Wells

227. “Look, if there were space monsters, they probably wouldn’t need a pressurized environment, right?”

— Martha Wells

228. “Nobody grabs SecUnits. I hadn’t realized this was a perk until now.”

— Martha Wells

229. “I got my helmet on and opaqued it. The relief was intense, about even with finding out that the combat override module had been removed. I love you, armor, and I’m never leaving you again.”

— Martha Wells

230. “I don’t need rest, I’m fueled by spite.”

— Martha Wells