Mutually Assured Destruction, MAD, works only as long as it works; it does not know what to do if deterrence fails, for it envisions no defensive capabilities. A deterrent works until it is needed; then one needs defenses.

I think it takes about a million words to make a writer. I mean that you're going to throw away.

That which does not kill me, has made a grave tactical error.

In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control, and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.[Pournelle's law of Bureaucracy]

Freedom is not free. It is bought at a high price. It can be squandered cheaply.

And in down times it shakes a lot of the bad SF out, a lot the stuff that was bought for literary reasons, which is neither entertaining nor great literature.

The importance of information is directly proportional to its improbability.