Laws had a bad habit of being ignored or abrogated when societal push came to totalitarian shove.

No lifetime is long enough for those ... who simply wish to understand themselves and their lives. It is, perhaps, the curse of being human, but also a blessing.

Evolution brings human beings. Human beings, through a long and painful process, bring humanity.

The past is dead and buried. But I know now that buried things have a way of rising to the surface when one least expects them to.

Barbarians, we call them, while all the while we timidly cling to our Web like Visigoths crouching in the ruins of Rome's faded glory and proclaim ourselves civilized.

It occurs to me that our survival may depend upon our talking to one another.

But I think, and hope, that the novels can be understood and enjoyed as science fiction, on their own terms.