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Long silence as he walked south along the beach. Then: “It’s too bad. It really is a very pretty world.”

Later: “What’s funny is anyone thinking it would work in the first place. I mean it’s obvious any new place is going to be either alive or dead. If it’s alive it’s going to be poisonous, if it’s dead you’re going to have to work it up from scratch. I suppose that could work, but it might take about as long as it took Earth.”

— Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson

“Only a true Earth twin not yet occupied by life would allow this plan to work, and these may exist somewhere, the galaxy after all is big, but they are too far away from us. Viable planets, if they exist, are simply too—far—away.”

Aram pauses for a moment to collect himself. Then he waves a hand and says more calmly,

“That’s why you aren’t hearing from anyone out there. That’s why the great silence persists. There are many other living intelligences out there, no doubt, but they can’t leave their home planets any more than we can, because life is a planetary expression, and can only survive on its home planet.”

— Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson

Fermi’s paradox has its answer, which is this: by the time life gets smart enough to leave its planet, it’s too smart to want to go. Because it knows it won’t work. So it stays home. It enjoys its home. As why wouldn’t you? It doesn’t even bother to try to contact anyone else. Why would you? You’ll never hear back. So that’s my answer to the paradox. You can call it Euan’s Answer.

— Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson