My gratitude extends beyond the limits of my capacity to express it.

Technology determines the possibilities of society. It doesn't matter whether you start out from a fascist state or a communist state or a free-market state

All you ever were was a little bit of the universe, thinking to itself. Very specific; this bit, here, right now. All the rest was fantasy.

What is any achievement, however great it was, once time itself is dead?

It looks perverted and wasteful to us, but then one thing that empires are not about is the efficient use of resources and the spread of happiness; both are typically accomplished despite the economic short-circuiting - corruption and favoritism, mostly- endemic to the system.

One should never regret one's excesses, only one's failures of nerve.

I'm a devoted husband. That must strike you as totally deviant.