If our god's work is to be done in our time, we must do it ourselves.

Once evolution gets a good basic design, it tends to throw away the variants and concentrate on the near-infinite diversity within that design.

The whole planet reeks of mysticism without revelation.

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.

Fate and victory shift ... now this way, now that way -- like a line of unarmored men under a hail of enemy arrows.

There is no doubt that I have discovered the ultimate in stagnant human societies. The Bikura have realized the human dream of immortality and have paid for it with their humanity and their immortal souls.

All of our lives are governed by a certain degree of faith in bullshit.