"Why has the Revolution of France been stained with crimes, which the Revolution of the United States of America was not? Men are physically the same in all countries; it is education that makes them different. Accustom a people to believe that priests or any other class of men can forgive sins, and you will have sins in abundance."

"Eloquence may strike the ear, but the language of poverty strikes the heart; the first may charm like music, but the second alarms like a knell."

"It is a want of feeling to talk of priests and bells while so many infants are perishing in the hospitals, and aged and infirm poor in the streets, from the want of necessaries."

"One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests."

"There ought to be some regulation with respect to the spirit of denunciation that now prevails. If every individual is to indulge his private malignancy or his private ambition, to denounce at random and without any kind of proof, all confidence will be undermined and all authority be destroyed. Calumny is a species of treachery that ought to be punished as well as any other kind of treachery. It is a private vice productive of public evils; because it is possible to irritate men into disaffection by continual calumny who never intended to be disaffected. It is therefore equally as necessary to guard against the evils of unfounded or malignant suspicion as against the evils of blind confidence. It is equally as necessary to protect the characters of public officers from calumny as it is to punish them for treachery or misconduct."

"As to riots and tumults, let those answer for them, who, by willful misrepresentations, endeavor to excite and promote them; or who seek to stun the sense of the nation, and to lose the great cause of public good in the outrages of a misinformed mob. We take our ground on principles that require no such riotous aid. We have nothing to apprehend from the poor; for we are pleading their cause. And we fear not proud oppression, for we have truth on our side."

"We live to improve, or we live in vain"

"We think it also necessary to express our astonishment that a government, desirous of being called , should prefer connection with the most despotic and arbitrary powers in Europe."

"[W]e hold, that the moral obligation of providing for old age, helpless infancy, and poverty, is far superior to that of supplying the invented wants of courtly extravagance, ambition and intrigue."

"It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man."

"And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any."

"War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen and unsupposed circumstances ... that no human wisdom can calculate the end."

"Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime."

"Avalon was neutral. The children of Earth might die, they might thrive. Avalon would embrace their bones or the progeny with equal warmth."

"Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."

"6) Everybody talks first draft."

"5) If you've nothing to say, say it any way you like. Stylistic innovations, contorted story lines or none, exotic or genderless pronouns, internal inconsistencies, the recipe for preparing your lover as a cannibal banquet: feel free. If what you have to say is important and/or difficult to follow, use the simplest language possible. If the reader doesn't get it then, let it not be your fault."

"4) It is a sin to waste the reader's time."

"3) Stories to end all stories on a given topic, don't."

"2) Never be embarrased or ashamed about anything you choose to write. (Think of this before you send it to a market)"

"1) Writers who write for other writers should write letters."

"19) Think before you make the coward's choice. Old age is not for sissies."

"17) No technique works if it isn't used."

"16) There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it. To prove a point, one may seek out a foolish Socialist, thirteenth century Liberal, Scientologist, High Frontier advocate, Mensa member, science fiction fan, Jim Bakker acolyte, Christian, witch, or fanatical devotee of Special Interest Lib. It doesn't really reflect on the cause itself. Ad hominem argument saves time, but it's still a fallacy."

"11) There is a time and place for tact. And there are times when tact is entirely misplaced."

"10) Anarchy is the least stable of social structures."

"9) Ethics change with technology."

"8) History never repeats itself."

"7) Any damn fool can predict the past."

"6) It is easier to destroy than create. Bin Laden tore down the World Trade Center? Let's see him build one. If human beings didn't have a strong preference for creation, nothing would get built, ever."

"5) Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless."

"4) Giving up freedom for security has begun to look naive. Even to me. Many of you were ahead of me on this — Three out of four hijacked airplanes destroyed the World Trade Center and a piece of the Pentagon in 2001. How is it possible that those planes were taken using only five perps armed with knives? It was possible because all those hundreds of passengers had been carefully stripped of every possible weapon. We may want to reconsider this approach. It doesn't work in high schools either."

"3) Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun."

"2) Never fire a laser at a mirror."

"1a) Never throw shit at an armed man. 1b) Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man."

"Here is where the predictions failed: We didn't take Cargo Cult mentality into account: "if somebody has something I don't, he must have stolen it." We didn't understand how good we could get at communication — when you have something that someone else doesn't, the whole damn planet knows it."

"Cheap superconductors imply maglev trains everywhere. Computers could get big again, with RAM/ROM rising by powers of forty and fifty, if superconductors shed the heat. Laser handguns against superconducting armor. I'm not predicting; I just love playing with superconductors."

"We've fallen way behind. Building one space station for everyone was and is insane: we should have built a dozen."

"The wealth of the universe is all over your head. We need to take command of the solar system to gain that wealth, and to escape the sea of paper our government is becoming, and for some decent chance of stopping a Dinosaur Killer asteroid."

"We follow the scientists around and look over their shoulders. They're watching their feet: provable mistakes are bad for them. We're looking as far ahead as we can, and we don't get penalized for mistakes."

"“It’s a joy,” she said, “watching you keep your mouth shut.”"

"What’s intelligence for if not for seeking knowledge?"

"Sex was a game nobody lost."

"“I copied it.” “Sure you did, joker, but they drew what they thought you wanted and you copied what you thought you saw—”"

"Cooking was creation itself; It seemed to put the universe in perspective."

"The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of cause."

"“I couldn’t sit here and tell you that I’m sorry it happened.” “Even with the death…?” “Everybody dies. The obstetrician slaps you on the ass with one hand and hands you a postdated death certificate with the other. What’s important is that our children have a better chance. It’s always been about the children. Always. Women have never loved being kept from education and treated as second-class citizens. Men have never enjoyed having their balls shot off in wars. Men and women didn’t fall into their roles accidentally, and each side doesn’t hate the other. It happened because for a thousand generations, that was the best way we knew to build a civilization, to build a better future for our children. The industrial revolution doomed slavery—racial, sexual, social. Civilization is worth fighting for.”"

"“They should give medals for this, Martinez.” “By the time the paperwork goes through, we’ll both be dead and gone.” “Too true.”"

"“Turning into a tradition, isn’t it?” “Around here, anything that happens twice is a tradition.”"

"Sometimes you just have to be satisfied with what you are."