"The superior strain of peas is the one whose genetic composition allows it to adapt to whatever environment it is presented with. People are not peas, but in one respect they are not very different from them: some have superior genetic composition to others."

"There was one good argument against cloning, and only one. It increased the total number of people, and to me that number already felt far too large."

"I worry when I hear talk of “this many millions” and “that many billions” from officials who I know have trouble calculating a restaurant tip."

"When you pay somebody off, it only increases their demands. I know, only too well. They are never satisfied with what they get."

"Do you see what I mean about evolution? Waldo exhibited none of the usual survival traits. Oh, well, perhaps a certain blind persistence. But as usual, he landed on his feet. He always does. It convinces me to the main genetic selection criterion these days is not skill, intelligence, or any of the usual virtues. It’s entertainment value. Have that, and everything else will come to you."

"Not one word of what I’d said had got through to him. It didn’t much matter, I’d really been speaking for the media anyway, but it was a shame to see bigotry masquerading as public-spirited behavior."

"Everyone agreed what an interesting concept it was—the sort of thing that ought to be true, in an interesting world."

"Alexandria may indeed be full of Devils, Lord, but they behaved very like merchants to my eyes."

"Irresponsible on my part, to put pleasure before professional work? Sure—but as I get older carpe diem gets more and more reasonable as a motto for life."

"If deadly violence were to be committed, he was like me. He would think it better to give than to receive."

"Luck is infatuated with the efficient."

"Telepathy? It’s bunk, Tolly. Now, if you’d asked me that forty years ago, I’d have said it was the most exciting thing in the world. Back when Rhine started his work, I thought there was really something there. Since then, it’s gone nowhere. Christ, there’s been any amount of talk, lots of horseshit, no real evidence, and nothing for progress. So now, I say it’s bunk—or else we’ve been going about it all wrong."

"Everyone was somebody’s cousin, or uncle, or bedmate, or best college friend. Sometimes he felt that the whole of Washington was glued together into one vast, incestuous, and inefficient snotball."

"“Could it wipe out life on Earth?” “Oh, I very much doubt that. Single-celled and oceanic forms will presumably survive. But it might make life impossible for humans.” “Actually, that tends to be my primary concern. Sponges and oysters will have to take care of themselves.”"

"Is that what it takes to go all the way in politics? Ambition first, everything else back in the pack? And if it is, would any sane human want to have what it takes?"

"Many plans featured that old standby, prayer. Its historical record of effectiveness apparently discouraged few people, although I, regrettably, am among the skeptics. All the churches were full. It is not clear to me exactly what prayers were being offered by their occupants. The temporary suspension, perhaps, of the laws of physics? The art galleries and theaters also reported record crowds. If religion is an opiate, art is an anodyne."

"Life’s not chess, and life’s not poker, but there’s some of both in it."

"Maybe Redman meant well when he set up the church, but you can never create a good society based on deception. It’s been tried before, and it always fails. The trouble is, people won’t learn from history."

"It is not clear to me whether the insouciance of youth will be the doom of humanity or its salvation. I prefer to think the latter, but I have my doubts."

"As the poet laureate of all confidence tricksters and treasure-seekers puts it, we were “given to strong delusion, wholly believing a lie.”"

"The trouble with apocalyptic visions is that they often won’t withstand a rational examination."

"What purpose and will didn’t tell you, unfortunately, was how to do something that must be done."

"Richard Nixon was protected from impeachment, so long as Spiro Agnew was Vice President and would assume the presidency in Nixon’s place. Half of Washington knew that Agnew was a crook, and a boneheaded one at that. They had to get rid of Agnew before they could really go after Nixon."

"More and more, she felt certain that the members of the Legion of Argos from the top down were mental cases. Prophecies, penances, holy cleansings, arbitrary murders to settle grievances, ethnic entry requirements, guns everywhere, regimented behavior, visitors who were effectively prisoners—all the signs of a paramilitary religious cult."

"I’d make a case for saying anything that propagates itself in an intentional way qualifies to be thought of as alive."

"You pursue progress, even if you suspect that it is an illusion."

"It was the age-old conundrum: How do I know that the ‘me’ who wakes after a night’s sleep is the same ‘me’ who went to bed? I don’t. I merely employ it as a working assumption, for lack of anything better."

"The leaders of the Legion of Argos were out-of-this-world mad. Rigid in outlook, intolerant of minor differences. In other centuries they would have led the Inquisition, tortured the heretics, burned the witches."

"The lead prosecutor told the jury at my trial that I was “A sick parasite, preying on society.” Parasite on society; this, mind you, from a lawyer."

"The same thing happens to every President. People tell a chief executive what they think he wants to hear. Rosy economic reports, high popularity figures, promising international changes, you name it. There’s a competition to be the first with good news. Anyone who tells bad news tends to get weeded out—even if all the real news is bad."

"It is one of the unfortunate aspects of the legal profession that excess carries no penalty. There is never, for a lawyer, such a thing as too much."

"“He was acquitted; he must have been.” “Right. Good lawyer, tainted evidence. But that doesn’t mean he was innocent.”"

"At stake with something more important than sex. At stake was life and death."

"The important question wasn’t whether or not you thought you were the right one to lead. It was whether others believed you were."

"Right decision or wrong decision, it was a leader’s job to make it."

"Decisions based on incomplete information are one thing, a fact of political life. Decisions made with no information are another."

"Data are not the same as information. Before you can get the answers you want, you have to ask the right question."

"“Any other instructions?” “Not without breaking one of my own golden rules. In an unpredictable situation, the man or woman on the spot should make the decisions, not the general sitting on his ass a million miles away from the action.”"

"A thousand friends have less weight than a single enemy."

"I learned a long time ago that it’s a bad habit to waste effort counting your friends. It’s your enemies you need to look out for."

"Only the final choice would require a human decision: enter the Link, or decline to do so? It occurred to Chan that perhaps this was the choice that humans were least qualified to make. He recognized in himself the tendency to say, we’ve come so far, we can’t possibly change our minds now. People following that philosophy died climbing mountains, they signed disastrous contracts, they flew into hurricanes, and they embarked on lifelong commitments to the wrong mates. Perhaps they headed to the stars for the same reason."