"There is nothing more alien to a modern American than yesterday’s empires, with their arbitrary imperial powers, their cruelty, and their casual control over life and death."

"Humans harnessed a negligible fraction of tidal energy, although the available energy is huge. Other species do rather better, and the intertidal zones are the most biologically productive regions of the world, more so than even the tropical rainforests."

"It is very clear that nothing in nature presents such a danger to the human race is our own actions."

"I sometimes think that the only thing in life that I find truly irresistible is the challenge to finagle something that everyone else says can’t be done."

"It’s no surprise that there are people like Anna Griss in the world. There always have been. Go back fifty thousand years, to a time when most of us were just grubbing along, looking for a decent bush of ripe berries or a fresher lump of meat. A few, like McAndrew, were busy inventing language or numbers, or painting the walls of the cave. And some, just a handful but too many in every generation, were seeking an edge over the rest of us: Water access, or mating rules, or restricted entry to heaven. No matter how few they were, Anna Griss would have been one of them."

"When in doubt, follow the money trail. People could lie, motives could be disguised, even acts could be misunderstood. Money was as constant as human nature."

"He had defined intuition for Sondra: it was what remained after all the facts had been forgotten. But intuition could also be something else. Sometimes it was the subconscious mind, establishing deep connections long before the thinking part of the brain could explain them."

"When you got right down to it, every important decision in life was made with inadequate information."

"Don’t get caught again. Never, never, never. That was the Golden Rule, the only important rule."

"Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue."

"Sometimes I think about dying. And then I wonder about going to hell. And then I think that if and when I go there, the place will be completely organized and run by lost souls, with a council and a works committee and an ethics panel, and I’ll feel right at home."

"“That’s a whole lot of ifs you got there.” “True. But which would you prefer, Louis Nenda?” Atvar H’sial rose from her crouched position. “A substantial set of contingent possibilities, or a single unpleasant certainty?”"

"When you had little or no information, it was unreasonable to have any expectations. But somehow you did, even if they were often wrong."

"Arabella Lund had been full of “rules,” and one of her most basic was this: Anything in the universe can happen once, or at least it can seem to happen. If you want to obtain information, make it happen again."

"Although the schoolchildren of this country emerge from our institutions of supposed learning ninety percent illiterate, knowing nothing of science, nothing of technology, little geography, and less history, every one of them will tell you who rules the country. We are governed by the interaction of a President, learned judges, and our people’s representatives. Every child knows this; and every child is wrong. Perhaps it was once that way, but today the Court and President and Congress are either members of the old and wealthiest families, like the Michelsons and Brooks; or they have been bought and controlled by them. The sprawl of government passes and implements policies. But far fewer people, about a hundred in number, set policies."

"You crazy? You’ve got me confused with a guy who cares about other people."

"If you wanted to get yourself killed, there was no better way than to think you knew all the tricks. It took experience to make you realize that the universe could always pull another one out of the bag and throw it at you."

"As you will one day discover, a leader is not a leader because of the way that he or she behaves. He is a leader only because of the way that he is treated by others."

"I do not like to concatenate implausibilities."

"Nothing was more fascinating than information. It was infinite in quantity, or effectively so, limited only by the total entropy of the universe; it was vastly diverse and various; it was eternal; It was available for collection, anywhere and anytime. And, perhaps best of all, E. C. Tally thought with the largest amount of self-satisfaction that his circuits permitted, you never knew when it might come in useful."

"Idle wishing for circumstances different from what you had was a waste of time."

"Who should run the world? There’s no easy answer, no magic solution. There never is, to a really hard question."

"Darya had a few moments of wild hope before logic intruded."

"What I found was worse than diversity—it was insanity."

"The answers come pat and fast. You see, what the downsiders want isn’t an explanation; it’s a catchphrase they can use instead of an explanation."

"Darya found the logic of her thought processes so compelling that it never occurred to her that others might have a different reaction. But they did."

"If you win too easy, better ask what’s going on that you don’t know about."

"But no one, no matter how intelligent, could make good inferences from bad data."

"Old habits did not just die hard. They refused to die at all."

"In any civilized society, it is the individual or group who creates a problem that must have responsibility for solving it."

"Once you were committed to a course of action, you didn’t waste your time looking back and second-guessing the decision, because every action in life was taken on the basis of incomplete information. You looked at what you had, and you did all you could to improve the odds; but at some point you had to roll the dice—and live or die with whatever you had thrown."

"Darya was beginning to understand why she might be ruined forever for academic life. Certainly, the world of ideas had its own pleasures and thrills. But surely there was nothing to compete with the wonderful feeling of being alive, after knowing without a shadow of doubt that you would be dead in one second."

"Hans Rebka sat on a rounded pyramid never designed for contact with the human posterior, and thought about luck. There was good luck, which mostly happened to other people. And there was bad luck, which usually happened to you. Sometimes, through observation, guile, and hard work, you could avoid bad luck—even make it look like good luck, to others. But you would know the difference, even if no one else did. Well, suppose that for a change good luck came your way. How should you greet that stranger to your house? You could argue that its arrival was inevitable, that the laws of probability insisted that good and bad must average out over long enough times and large enough samples. Then you could welcome luck in, and feel pleased that your turn had come round at last. Or you could hear what Hans Rebka was hearing: the small, still voice breathing in his ear, telling him that this good luck was an impostor, not to be trusted."

"In the old words of wisdom, you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, and that’s usually enough to get by."

"“We’re all here,” said Louis Nenda’s voice. “Where’s here? Can you see?” “Not a thing. Black as a politician’s heart.”"

"“D’you know what homeostasis is?” “I used to, before I rotted my brain with politics.”"

"The limits we assign to Nature sometimes define our own lack of imagination."

"Maddy was not consumed by the immediate pressures of the here and now. She had been provided with a fatal indulgence: time to think."

"Maddy listened closely to John’s voice. It was calm, but with an odd undercurrent of excitement. She thought, That weirdo, he’s enjoying this. If I were a failing component, I’d get more of his attention than I do now. Engineers!"

"Some of the Argos Group records are awful strange. If I had to guess, I’d say there’s fiddlin’ going on that don’t sound like violins."

"Engineers are dangerous because they’re obsessed by facts and you can’t divert them or buy them off."

"Other people’s jobs always seemed easier than yours until you actually had to do them."

"You went through life in public office, laying claim to high morality when you knew quite well that at heart you were totally immoral. You were well acquainted with the majority of the seven deadly sins. Certainly pride, anger, and greed had their place in your life. You could claim a lifelong familiarity with and affection for lust. And then, at an age when a man ought know himself, you discovered that your immorality had its limits."

"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."

"An old axiom: when you are totally confused, don’t make things worse by talking."

"TIG. Trust In Government. An old political principle, to give your organization a name that’s the opposite of what you mean."

"Humans were inexplicable only if you assumed that they were logical."