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

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

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.

Of all the sciences, astronomy was the one the superstitious liked least.

Naive' is not a word I associate with the Southern Rule. Superstitious, perhaps, traditional, yes, maddeningly set in their way, certainly but not naive." "I meant you are naive. They must have a hidden motive." "This is why I have no politics," said Darvin. "I can't think in those terms.

It had long been established in the Civil Worlds that public business was to be transparent, and personal business opaque; but it was as well recognised that the two would always have a turbulent interface, and that the clique, the caucus, and the conspiracy were as ineradicable features of civility as the council or the committee.