The idea of determinism combined with complete human responsibility struck me as very hard to reconcile with an idea of justice, let alone mercy.

I enjoyed Old Man's War immensely. A space war story with fast action, vivid characters, moral complexity and cool speculative physics, set in a future you almost want to live into, and a universe you sincerely hope you don't live in already.

The world has become one big grassy knoll, crawling with lone gunmen who think they're the Warren Commission.

Hey, this is Europe. We took it from nobody; we won it from the bare soil that the ice left. The bones of our ancestors, and the stones of their works, are everywhere. Our liberties were won in wars and revolutions so terrible that we do not fear our governors: they fear us. Our children giggle and eat ice-cream in the palaces of past rulers. We snap our fingers at kings. We laugh at popes. When we have built up tyrants, we have brought them down. And we have nuclear ********* weapons.

Falling in love indicated that your genes were complementary to those of the loved one. It told you nothing about when your personalities and sexualities were compatible.

I don't really believe in the Devil, but if the Devil is the Father of Lies, then he certainly invented the Internet.

I'm a long-term optimist, and I don't think the problems with our society are from being overly optimistic.