The ship was aware that, however splendid, intellectually refined and marvellous it might be (and it was very much of the opinion that it was all of those things, and more), it would likely still only ever measure its age in thousands of years, and for all the star’s monotonous lifelessness and sterility, it would still be here when it, the ship Mistake Not …, had gone.

— The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #10)