People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence.

One might accept death reasoningly, with every aspect of the conscious mind, but the body was a brute beast that knew nothing of reason.

To introduce something altogether new would mean to begin all over, to become ignorant again, and to run the old, old risk of failing to learn.

Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.

Until I became a published writer, I remained completely ignorant of books on how to write and courses on the subject ... they would have spoiled my natural style; made me observe caution; would have hedged me with rules.

If I had felt then as I feel now, or as I felt a few years after I had married her, nothing could possibly have persuaded me to marry a woman who smoked. Dates, yes. Sexual adventures, yes. But to pin myself permanently inside closed quarters with a smoker? Never. Never. Never. Beauty wouldn't count, sweetness wouldn't count, suitability in every other respect wouldn't count.

Having reached 451 books as of now doesn't help the situation. If I were to be dying now, I would be murmuring, "Too bad! Only four hundred fifty-one." (Those would be my next-to-last words. The last ones will be: "I love you, Janet.") [They were. -Janet.]