“Posthuman. It was a word from advertising copy, breathless and empty, and all hed ever thought it really meant was that the people using it had a limited imagination about what exactly humans were ...”

“Part of his mind was screaming, but it was a distant one and easy to ignore.”

“War without end. Well, what was history without that? And how would having the stars change anything?”

“Nothing lasted forever. Not peace. Not war. Nothing.”

“The messages coming back flooded the comm buffers with rage and sorrow, threats of vengeance and offers of aid. Those last were the hardest. New colonies still trying to force their way into local ...”

“Because we can't just blow up enough things that this becomes a good situation.”

“Rather than the strength it takes to not lose, it's the strength to stand back up after a loss that is sometimes more valuable.”

“You need to be my wife to win with me.”

“Look yourself... staring into the monitor... and your time is going to be lost like that...First secondsSecond minutesThird hours”

“There are no facts, only interpretations.”

“My story is of such marvel that if it were written with a needle on the corner of an eye, it would yet serve as a lesson to those who seek wisdom.”

“There are 1,198,500,000 people alive now in China. To get a feel for what that means, simply take yourself - in all your singularity, importance, complexity, and love - and multiply by 1,198,500,00...”