There is no one right way to live.

In effect, you're saying that if you knew how you oughtt to live, then the flaw is man could be controlled. If you knew how you ought to live, you wouldn't be forever screwing up the world. perhaps in fact the two things are actually one thing. Perhaps the flaw in man is exactly this: that he doesn't know how he ought to live.

The world must live. We are only one species among billions. The gods don't love us any more than they love spiders or bears or whales or water lilies.

five severed fingers do not make a hand

The world of the Takers is one vast prison, and except for a handful of Leavers scattered across the world, the entire human race is now inside that prison.

I hope it will not be too long before the technologies that support our population explosion begin to be perceived as no less hazardous to the future of life on this planet than the endless production of radioactive wastes.

What's normal is for things to work. What's not normal is for things to fail.