I'm either a mutant or a cripple, and I refuse to be a cripple. People pity cripples, but they're afraid of mutants [...] Fear implies respect.

No degree of prosperity can be sufficient to eliminate all misfortune, and sloth is impervious to opportunity.

Most universities are no longer temples of knowledge, but of power, and true moderns worship there.

When a knot gets to tight, you can always cut the rope

Where there's cake, there's hope. And there's always cake.

In my books, I never portray violence as a reasonable solution to a problem. If the lead characters in the story are driven to it, it's at the extreme end of their experience.

Love was a sacred garment, woven of a fabric so thin that it could not be seen, yet so strong that even mighty death could not tear it, a garment that could not be frayed by use, that brought warmth into what would otherwise be an intolerable, cold world- but at times love could also be as heavy as chain mail. Bearing the burden of love, on those occasions when it was a solemn weight, made it more precious when, in better times, it caught the wind in sleeves like wings, and lifted you.