If you're right, and nobody really cares what's out there, I wonder whether we're even worth saving.

How does it happen that the most intractable types always rise to the top?

Intelligence is like pornography. I can't define it, but I know if when I see it.

Technological civilizations don't last long. You're all right until you get a printing press. Then a race starts between technology and common sense. And maybe technology always wins.

Sometimes the cost of integrity is the loss of a friend.

All of the important things ... will turn out to be universally shared. It's why there will be no true aliens.

People who wear their religion on their sleeves talk a lot about going to Sunday school, reading the Bible, and doing good works. And I suppose there's no harm in that. But if I'd gone to the trouble to pull all this together ... and people never paid any attention to it, never bothered to try to find out how the world worked, then I think I'd get annoyed.