In politics, the tripod is he most unstable of all structures. It's be bad enough without the complication of a feudal trade culture which turns its back on most science.

Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and has powers of reality.

A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating.

There's an unwritten compact between you and the reader. If someone enters a bookstore and sets down hard earned money (energy) for your book, you owe that person some entertainment and as much more as you can give.

Thinking you know something is a sure way to blind yourself.

It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire.

Then, as his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error.