If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include the truth of contact or be forever hollow.

There is a fullness and calmness there which can come only from knowing pain.

If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include the truth of contact or be forever hollow.

She had always felt that the essence of human experience lay not primarily in the peak experiences, the wedding days and triumphs which stood out in the memory like dates circled in red on old calendars, but, rather, in the unself-conscious flow of little things - the weekend afternoon with each member of the family engaged in his or her own pursuit, their crossings and connections casual, dialogues imminently forgettable, but the sum of such hours creating a synergy which was important and eternal.

Mobs have passions, not brains.

In twentieth-century Old Earth, a fast food chain took dead cow meat, fried it in grease, added carcinogens, wrapped it in petroleum-based foam, and sold nine hundred billion units. Human beings. Go figure.

The young remember most deeply.... When we are old and failing, it is the memories of childhood which can be summoned most clearly.