"The last of the Qax had come sliding through the interstices of space and now hovered with him over the frigid surface of the star. Human and Qax, huddled around the chill proton star, did not attempt to communicate. There was nothing more to say. The river of time flowed, unmarked, towards the endless seas of timelike infinity."

"There was no cognition he realized. There was only perception."

"Paul closed his eyes, hoping to make the incomprehensible Universe disappear into the vacuum from which it had sprung."

"I’ve made myself a rich man. You shouldn’t assume that makes me a fool."

"Time stretches like a lazy leopard when it wants to."

"The river of time flowed unmarked, towards the endless seas of timelike infinity."

"Maybe we should gather a few more facts before wasting our time speculating."

"Maybe it’s time we humans abandoned our species-specific chauvinism—our petty outrage that the Universe has unfolded in a way that doesn’t suit us."

"It was too anthropomorphic to consider the lifecycle of a star as some analogy of human birth, life and death. A star was a construct of physical processes; the evolution it went through was simply a search for equilibrium stages between changing, opposing forces. There was no life or death involved, no loss or gain: just process. Why shouldn’t it be beautiful?"

"Empty. Barren. These were the true conditions of the Universe, she thought; life, and variety, and energy, were isolated aberrations."

"Understanding is the key to turning anything from a threat into an opportunity."

"She tried, sometimes, to remember how it had been to be young. Or even, not quite so old."

"“But that’s insane,” Morrow protested. Uvarov hissed, “No one ever said it wasn’t. We’re human beings. What do you expect?”"

"“No,” Morrow said. “I can’t accept that. I don’t always agree with the Planners. But they aren’t killers.” “You think not?” Uvarov laughed again. “The survivalists—your ‘Planners’—are psychotic. Of course. As I am. And you. We are a fundamentally flawed species. Most of humanity, for most of its history, has been driven by a series of mass psychotic delusions. The labels changed, but the nature of the delusions barely varied...”"

"Try to remember this lesson. It might keep you alive a little longer. The most precious thing to a human being is a mind-set: more precious than one’s own life, even. Human history has taught us that lesson time and again, with its endless parade of wars—human sacrifices en masse—thousands of deaths over the most trivial of differences of religious interpretation."

"“You know, in principle, why our world is as it is. Isn’t that sufficient? Is it really necessary for you to understand every detail?” But if I don’t understand, Morrow thought sourly, then you can control me. Arbitrarily. And that’s what I find hard to accept."

"You’re a damn fool, boy. I want you to know that now, in case I don’t get a chance to tell you later."

"Why should it be so? It was as if humans built such places as this with the sole purpose of finding ways to dominate each other. Muub listened to Adda’s clumsy explanation of this. “But it’s inevitable,” he said, his face neutral. “You have to have organization—hierarchy—if you are to run the complex, interlinking systems which sustain a society like the City with its hinterland. And only within such a society can man afford art, science, wisdom—even leisure of the most brutish sort, like these Games. And with hierarchies comes power.” He smiled at Adda, condescending once more. “People aren’t very noble, upfluxer. Look around you. Their darker side will find expression in any situation where they can best each other.”"

"“But Parz was better than nothing: it offered stability, regulation, a framework to live in. People gripe about their tithes—and nobody’s going to pretend that the Committee gets it right all the time—but most of us would prefer taxes to living wild. With all respect to you, my friend.” He bit into his cake. “And that’s still true today; as true as it ever was.”"

"Bzya touched his shoulder. “But that’s why you and I are here, old man. To keep the world away from boys like Farr and Cris—to give them a place that seems as stable and eternal as your parents did when you were a child—until they are old enough to cope with the truth.”"

"Mind you, flatulence was one skill he had bettered as he had got older."

"Human consciousness was an artificial thing. Once humans had believed that gods animated their souls, fighting their battles in the guise of humans. Later they had evolved the idea of the self-aware, self-directed consciousness. Now Michael saw that it had all been no more than an idea, a model, an illusion behind which to hide. He, the last man, need no longer cling to such outmoded comforts. There was no cognition, he realized. There was only perception."

"“That’s the trouble with living so damned long,” Michael said. “Soured relationships last for ever.”"

"That great dust-heap called ‘history’."

"A great library easily begets affection, which may deepen into love."

"It is pleasant to be admitted into the birth-chamber of a great idea destined to be translated into action."

"We do not get many glimpses of Bodley's habits of life or ways of thinking, but there is no difficulty in discerning a strenuous, determined, masterful figure, bent during his later years, perhaps tyrannously bent, on effecting his object. He was not, we learn from a correspondent, 'hasty to write but when the posts do urge him, saying there need be no answer to your letters till more leisure breed him opportunity.' 'Words are women, deeds are men,' is another saying of his which I reprint without comment."

"Great is bookishness and the charm of books."

"Personally, I am dead against the burning of books."

"There were no books in Eden, and there will be none in heaven."

"Oh, those scoundrelly Charity Commissioners! […] By the side of these anthropoid apes, the genuine bookworm, the paper-eating insect, ravenous as he once was, has done comparatively little mischief."

"It can never be wrong to give pleasure."

"There are no habits of man more alien to the doctrine of the Communist than those of the collector."