Better a soulless clone... than a souled roach.

Do ants get headaches?

Love's pure free joy when it works, but when it goes bad you pay for the good hours at loan-shark prices.

Music’s a wood you walk through.

Oh, diplomacy ... it mops up war's spillages; legitimizes its outcomes; gives the strong state the means to impose its will on a weaker one, while saving its fleets and battalions for weightier opponents.

... in a cycle as old as tribalism, ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only "rights", the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful.

A novelist needs to know his own strong points and weak points.