"“Let me ask you something.” “Okay!” “Are we good guys or are we bad guys?” “We’re good guys.” “Well, good guys only do terrible things when our lives depend on it. And we have to feel bad about them afterward.” “Why?” “Because otherwise, we become the bad guys.”"

"This must be a field day for the end-is-nigh, compound-dwelling, bullets-and-Bibles folk. They must feel so vindicated. If there was any comfort to find at the end of the world, it was knowing you were right all along and that was about it."

"Survival is worthless without meaning."

"“I’m too drunk to handle this right now. I’m going to need you to be the adult in the room tonight.” “Asshole, I’m drunk too.” “Yeah, but you’re better at it than I am.”"

"For as long as humankind can remember, it has wanted two things: to play God and to breathe life into the objects around them. And for thousands of years, humans created machines to approximate life and magic and all the things men and women could not do. And then a man stood in front of a roomful of people and had a computer say, “Hello.” That’s it. Hello. It didn’t mean it. It didn’t know what it was saying. But it said it. Hello. And within thirty years, humans were having conversations with their phones."

"Taking a vote or poll is a great simple way to take a decision, but it doesn't help a group find consensus. It actually polarizes people and highlights the differences between them. People end up getting entrenched in their views."

"Beyond individual intelligence, nature has also cultivated intelligence through swarms. For example, bees, birds and fish act in a more intelligent way when acting together as a swarm, flock or school"

"We focus on a unique form of artificial intelligence called artificial swarm intelligence"

"How does nature amplify the intelligence of groups? It forms swarms."

"Forcing polarized groups into a swarm allows them to find the answer that most people are satisfied with"

"We take the sense of touch for granted. Think about it: Without it, you're missing one of the basic senses that enables you to interact with the world."

"The reason that fish form schools, birds form flocks, and bees form swarms is that they are smarter together than they would be apart. They don't take a vote; they don't take a poll: they form a system. They are all interactive and make a decision together in real time."

"You have the sense of touch because you need it."

"A poll will give you the most popular answer but not the answer that optimizes the preference of a group."

"The head that wears a crown may be Inclined to some anxiety, But, on the other hand, I know A derby domes its meed of woe."

"Breathes there a man with hide so tough Who says two sexes aren’t enough?"

"I burned my candle at both ends, And now have neither foes nor friends."

"Babies haven’t any hair; Old men’s heads are just as bare;— Between the cradle and the grave Lies a haircut and a shave."

"Blessings love disguise."

"To You, oh, Goddess of Efficiency, Your happy vassals bend the reverent knee, Save when arthritis, your benighted foe, Sulks in the bones and sourly mumbles "No!""

"To all the starry host of Heaven they cried, But had no radio and of course they died."

"Little by little we subtract Faith and Fallacy from Fact, The Illusory from the True, And starve upon the Residue."

"My soul is dark with stormy riot, Directly traceable to diet."

"Which six of the seven cities that claimed Homer were liars?"

"Smelling like a municipal budget."

"If you love me, as I love you, We'll both be friendly and untrue."

"Your little voice, So soft and kind; Your little soul, Your little mind!"

"The countless cousins of the Czar, Grand Duke or Duchess, every one, As multitudinous as are The spheres (who borrow from the sun)."

"The heart’s dead Are never buried."

"The stars, like measles, fade at last."

"I play with the bulls and the bears; I’m the Bartlett of market quotations."

"You buy some flowers for your table; You tend them tenderly as you’re able; You fetch them water from hither and thither— What thanks do you get for it all? They wither."

"When the wind is in the tree, It makes a noise just like the sea, As if there were not noise enough To bother one, without that stuff."

"Loyal be to loyal friends; Make them pay you dividends; Work, like the industrious bee, Your friends and foes impartially."

"When trouble drives me into rhyme, Which is two-thirds of all the time, What peace a thought like this can give— Great is the age in which we live!"

"The dead they sleep a long, long sleep; The dead they rest, and their rest is deep; The dead have peace, but the living weep."

"Some folks I know are always worried, That when they die, they will be buried; And some I know are quite elated Because they’re going to be cremated."

"I’d rather listen to a flute In Gotham, than a band in Butte."

"Oh, how various is the scene Allowed to Man for his demesne!"

"Four of us together dwell— Two from Heaven and two from Hell; Four of us under the selfsame sky— Love and Death and a Dream and I."

"Of all the birds that sing and fly Between the housetops and the sky, The muddy sparrow, mean and small, I like, by far, the best of all."

"The apple grows so bright and high, And ends its days in apple pie."

"When you’re away, I’m restless, lonely, Wretched, bored, dejected; only Here’s the rub, my darling dear, I feel the same when you are here."

"So far what we’re doing here is pure science. We’re learning facts about the universe without worrying what they’re good for."

"Something in his mind had snapped and he began collecting comics."

"Usually, when you read war literature, they’re trying to present what they went through to someone who wasn’t there."

"In the UK world war one is a selling point; in the US it's more an obstacle. In the UK we live in the fossilised wreckage of world war one; a lot of people see it as a turning point for the empire and it looms larger in the consciousness."

"Oxford alumna Alice Winn, who studied English Literature at , may have published just one novel so far, but it is one hell of a debut. Since its appearance in 2023, In Memoriam has met with widespread acclaim and been lauded with prizes – and with good cause. It’s a genuinely compulsive page-turner, a sweeping historical tragedy and an intimate love story all rolled into one, exactly the kind of book that plays on your mind for a long time afterwards. Following a forbidden love between two soldiers in the First World War, you can imagine the acute sense of heartache that runs throughout."