There is no reason to assume that the universe has the slightest interest in intelligence—or even in life. Both may be random accidental by-products of its operations like the beautiful patterns on a butterfly's wings. The insect would fly just as well without them.

And because, in all the Galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars; they sowed, and sometimes they reaped. And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed.

Training was one thing, reality another.

What was more, they had taken the first step toward genuine friendship. They had exchanged vulnerabilities.

The entire sweep of human history from the dark ages into the unknown future was considerably less important at the moment than the question of a certain girl and her feelings toward him.

The best proof that there's intelligent life in the universe is that it hasn't come here.

If children have interests, then education happens.