"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."

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

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

"The bad thing about being a world-class worrier was that being right was worse than being wrong."

"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!"

"The game never ended. If Sol were guaranteed to go nova tomorrow, today she would hear from lobbyists for sunscreen."

"“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.”"

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

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

"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?"

"When you have died once, you become most reluctant to do so again."

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

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

"If you tried really hard, you could take that as a compliment."

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

"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."

"The heirs, naturally, wanted everything to be theirs as soon as possible. No one is more rapacious, ruthless, and impatient than a loving family member."

"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.”"

"When hard times come to the party, dignity is one of the first guests to leave."

"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."

"“But remember, it was all hearsay.” “In Washington, hearsay’s the same as gospel truth.”"

"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."

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

"I’ll say only this: if we’re going to throw the idea of the Big Bang overboard, we won’t have much left of current astrophysics and cosmology."

"“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.”"

"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."

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

"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."

"It was improbable for him to meet his old friends here? Fine, so it was improbable; but it had happened. “Improbable” was something you could only apply to future events."

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

"He had written the man off completely, and now here came common sense and a talent for improvisation. Maybe you didn’t have to be an idiot just because you were rich."

"Korin stared. It must be a novelty, finding someone more paranoid than he was."

"It was the classic question; you had two tasks to perform and one promised to be much harder and more unpleasant than the other. Did you tackle the tough one first and get it out of the way? Or did you postpone, and hope that before you came to the hard part you might be struck by a meteorite, or that a solar flare would wipe out life in the solar system?"

"Violence is never the only solution."

"We both know that actions taken from internal conviction are far better motivated than any external commands."

"Never get involved in a venture with a man who inherited his money and didn’t earn any himself. He’ll assume he’s smarter than you are, just because he’s rich and you’re not, and he’ll expect you to bow down to his greatness because for all his life people have."

"It had been designed for “peacekeeping,” which meant that it had been fitted out from stem to stern with the most hideous weapons of war that the human mind could conceive."

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

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