Critics From The United States

"“What you propose to do today is to bring civilization to a lawless corner of the world. I know that you claim more modest ambitions. But when the protection of law is extended to the innocent and weak, that is civilization. Now I hold that in the natural state, there are only two kinds of people in the world—the men with guns, and the victims. And the one kind feeds off the other.”"

"I’m a politician. I agree with the majority of whoever I happen to be with at the moment."

"The announcers sounded giddily excited. Their faces flushed, their eyes bright. Natural disasters did that to people, made them feel significant, reassured them that their actions mattered."

"Be grateful. I’ve taught you a valuable lesson. Most people never do learn exactly how much they will do to stay alive."

"“Machines!” Wyeth snorted. “Machines are the easiest things in the universe to outwit because they’re predictable—that’s their function, to be predictable, to do exactly what they’re designed for, time after time."

"If I have to play your stupid games, at least I don’t have to pretend to enjoy them."

"“Excuse me,” she said hesitantly, “but what effect do these minor planets have on our behavior and fortunes? I mean, you know, astrological influence?” He looked at her. “None.” “None at all.” “No.” “But if the planets affect our fortunes—” She stumbled to a stop at the dispassionately scornful look on the pale man’s face, the slow way he shook his head. “Surely you’ll agree that the planets order and control our destinies?” “They do not.” “Not at all?” “Then what does? Control our destinies, I mean.” “The only external forces that have any influence on us are those we can see every day: the smile, the frown, the fist, the brick wall. What you call ‘destiny’ is merely a semantic fallacy, the attribution of purpose to blind causality. Insofar as any of us are compelled to resist the flow of random events, we are driven solely by internal drives and forces.”"

"“So whose side are you on? You have to choose.” “I’m not going to be on anybody’s side anymore,” she said. “Sides are stupid.”"

"“They’re just kids,” Will said scornfully. “Do not despise them because they are young. The young make excellent soldiers and better martyrs. They are easily dominated, quickly trained, and as ruthless as you command them to be. They kill without regret, and they go to their deaths readily, because they do not truly understand that death is permanent.”"

"Sam stood in the center of the church, listening for the presence of God. It was a hot place. The air was blue with floating radioisotopes. She glanced up at the clouds and they staggered by as if the walls were falling in on her. She looked away quickly. The air flowed around her, calm and peaceful and blue. But there was no divine presence."

"These hands were almost crippled digging coal so that rich men in Boston might grow even richer."

"For all that she’d had no great expectations for it, sex was turning out to be even more squalid, tawdry, and cynical than she had suspected it would."

"I’ll have to throw it at him, Rebel thought. Swing it up, catch him under the jaw, break a few teeth. Then grab the knife and hold him for the security people. That was a good plan. It ranked right up there with suddenly learning how to teleport."

"The oracle-glass was maddeningly literal, capable of answering only the question one asked, rather than that which one wanted answered."

"“What was all that about?” “It’s an occupational hazard...You start by reading books, and you end by loving them.”"

"“Your collection is not a woman. That’s only a metaphor—an abstraction! You’ll be dying for nothing, for a principle that nobody else can even comprehend.” As she spoke, Jane became convinced that she herself would never willingly die for a principle. She might feel guilty about it, but she’d smile and lie, knuckle under, pretend, anything, in order to survive. It made her feel a little sad to realize this, but also, at the same time, very adult."

"It was the kind of discovery that shatters old universes and opens up new ones in their place."

"“Your system works fine in theory. But things are different in the real world.” ”I’m going to move to Theory some day,” Chuck said. “Everything works there.”"

"She was one of those people who discredited their own ideas by the force with which they argued them."

"“Can you really kill the Goddess?” Jane asked. “You stupid gobbet of flesh! Don’t you understand yet? There is no Goddess.” “No,” Jane cried. “You said yourself—” “I lied,” the dragon said with a fearful complacency. “Everyone you have ever met has lied to you. Life exists, and all who live are born to suffer. The best moments are fleeting and bought with the coin of exquisite torment. All attachments end. All loved ones die. All that you value passes away. In such a vexatious existence laughter is madness and joy is folly. Shall we accept that it all happens for no reason, with no cause? That there is nobody to blame but ourselves but that accepting the responsibility is pointless for doing so cannot ease, defer, or deaden the pain? Not likely! It is so much more comforting to erect a straw figure on which to blame it all. “Some bow down before the Goddess and others curse her every name. There is not a fart’s difference between the two approaches. They cling to the fiction of the Goddess because admitting the alternative is unbearable.”"

"“That’s impossible.” “Only to small minds,” Gertrude said."

"It was a terrible blessing she’d been given, to see herself the way everybody else did."

"“We’ll be taking out the front gate and the Time Clock, and blasting the Goddess Stone to gravel.” She felt wild, free, vengeful, obscene—unstoppable. “Serving the Bitch notice.” She knew that there was no Goddess, save as a metaphor for what was otherwise inconceivable, that the forces they were going up against were as impersonal as they were vast. But it felt more satisfying this way."

"“Are you ready?” Jane asked. “Before I existed, I was ready.”"

"“It’s inspired lunacy,” Leyster agreed. Chuck looked crestfallen. “Right up there with continental drift, or the notion that birds might be descended from dinosaurs.” Chuck brightened. “But it’s also right up there with Eric Van Danniken and Lamarckian genetics. Until we’ve tested it out, it’s just a nifty hypothesis, no more.”"

"You have to spell things out for the press—you can’t rely on them to know even the simplest things."

"It really is a pity. Esme was so full of curiosity and enthusiasm when she was a child. She’d make a great biologist. But it was her misfortune to be born wealthy. She had dreams. But her parents had too much money to allow that."

"For a long time the Baldwynn did not speak. At last he said, “Will you serve the Goddess now? Knowingly and lovingly, in sweet obedience and humble acknowledgment of all that she is?” “No.” The word was a pebble in her mouth. She spat it out. “Not now, not tomorrow, not if I live to be a million. Never.” The Baldwynn stopped and took her hands in his. “Dear child,” he said. “I feared there was no hope for you.”"

"The authority of superior knowledge was different in kind from the authority of assumed power. Still, he felt a little awkward assuming it."

"But the way she saw it, you only had so much organization in your life. You had to choose: Invest it in your research, or fritter it away on housework."

"We did it the way we did it because according to the records, that’s the way we did it. The rules against paradox bind us as tightly as they do you."

"Everybody dies. So much of growing up consists of coming to grips with this fact."

"She had learned at an early age that it was not how often you were wrong that counted in science, but how often you were right. One startling hit covered a multitude of bad guesses."

"“I have no need to expose myself to your flummery,” Mette said with dignity. “I believe in order that I may know. I do not know in order to believe.” “I marvel at your spite. Of what possible benefit can this willful ignorance be to you?”"

"“Surely,” he cried, “this is not inevitable. Surely humanity could take the knowledge you offer and use it to ennoble itself. Surely they could apply it wisely and without folly.” “They could,” Mephistopheles said dryly. “But will they?”"

"“Now why on Earth would you tell him a thing like that?” “Because it’s true.” Sbrulius laughed. “That, dear Faust, is the single worst argument you could have raised. Many things are true. Few are proper. Fewer still are desirable.”"

"“The problem was that when all you’re trying to do is survive, the universe seems a cold and hostile place. We needed a purpose. To distract us from our awareness of being a single spark of human warmth in an infinite expanse of silence. One small candle in the infinite night of being.” “Do you really think science is purpose enough?” “Yes, I do. I always have. Maybe it’s because I was a lonely kid, and there were times that learning things was all that kept me going. The search for truth is not an unworthy reason to keep going.” “You make it sound so arbitrary.” “Maybe it is. Yet I persist in believing that knowledge is better than ignorance.”"

"Common sense has very little to do with physics."

"(All human beings have their price, and quite often it is surprisingly small. The trick consists of knowing exactly what that price is, when they themselves do not.)"

"So it was that the Catherines poured water and spooned gruel, while the Clares prayed for the intercession of the saints. The Catherines changed sheets. The Clares practiced mortification of the flesh. The Catherines employed antibiotics. The Clares made a public display of a kneecap of their patron saint. It was soon widely know to which hospital one went to get well, and to which one went to die."

"We had ambition, and ascended into Hell."

"There was so much going on, and so little he cared to know about!"

"“Okay, so we broke the rules. That’s good! There are no more rules—they’re broken. Anything is possible now. We’ll find a solution. There has to be a solution. There always is.” “Not in my experience.” They were, he realized, standing on opposite sides of the great divide that separates those who deal with scientific fact and those who deal with the consequences of human actions. Which is to say, those who believe in a rational universe and those who know that, given the existence of human beings, there is no such thing. “You and I belong to entirely different universes, did you know that?”"

"“Good men are dying at this very moment to protect you, your factories, your possessions, and all civilization.” “Good men are dying every moment,” Gretchen replied coldly, “somewhere. Since they did not ask my leave to do so, I feel no particular obligation toward them.”"

"It pained him to think how naive he had once been."

"Everything was dying, yet death did not suffice. Life had hidden resources. In a thousand ways it was concentrating strength, hoarding its energies in seed, chrysalis, and nectar, preparing for the warrior sweep out of exile that would undo the defeat of winter. Spring was implicit."

"And she was off, leaping like a salmon from idea to idea. Hers was the kind of fast and playful intellect that enjoyed tossing a stone into the pond of received wisdom, just to see the frogs jump."

"She had gone rafting down the Eden. She had faced down the largest animals ever to walk the Earth. She had tended to a dying woman in her final days and nursed an ailing man back to health. She had known tears and laughter, toil, love, sweat, and danger. These were the primal satisfactions, the things that made life matter. What did Washington, D.C., in the twenty-first century have to offer that could compare with them?"

"Still...the greatest adventure of her life was over and done for. She had returned from Never-Never Land, from Middle-earth, from El Dorado. The dragons were slain, the treasures dug up and hauled away in wagons, the swords and bright banners packed in trunks and stowed in the attic. Nothing she ever did would be as vivid and meaningful again."

"Second chances were so rare in this world to be almost miracles."