“Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China an...”

“Right, by tomorrow morning everyone will have congregated in Le Havre and you can all pile in the car and come back out here together," said Tristan in a rapid monotone, as if needing to rationaliz...”

“A few dud universes can really clutter up your basement.”

“Is power like the vis viva and the quantite davancement? That is, is it conserved by the universe, or is it like shares of a stock, which may have great value one day, and be worthless the next? If...”

“Nell did not imagine that Constable Moore wanted to get into a detailed discussion of recent events, so she changed the subject. "I think I have finally worked out what you were trying to tell me, ...”

“In your Primer you have a resource that will make you highly educated, but it will never make you intelligent. That comes from life. Your life up to this point has given you all the experience you ...”

“An old market had stood there until I'd been about six years old, when the authorities had renamed it the Olde Market, destroyed it, and built a new market devoted to selling T-shirts and other obj...”

“Let us not neglect the forbidden. Let us not sophisticate ourselves out of the cheap thrill and chill of it: the story told for perversity's sake, and all the better for that; the image created bec...”

“Yes, a war is inevitable. Firstly, there's you fellows who can't be trusted. And then there's the multitude who mean to have bathrooms and white enamel. Millions of them; all over the world. Not me...”

“Well-being is attained little by little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself.”

“Be not the first by whom the new is tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside, is a safe rule for those who would always retain the good opinion of that all-powerful, but somewhat unintelligent,...”