Humans were still not only the cheapest robots around, but also, for many tasks, the only robots that could do the job. They were self-reproducing robots too. They showed up and worked generation after generation; give them 3000 calories a day and a few amenities, a little time off, and a strong jolt of fear, and you could work them at almost anything. Give them some ameliorative drugs and you had a working class, reified and coglike.

The distinguishing mark of true adventures, is that it is often no fun at all while they are actually happening.

It would take 2,000 Vietnam Memorials to list the [Twentieth] century's war dead.

The command to be free is a double bind

Each of us have a gift, you see, given us freely by the universe. And each of us with every breath gives something back

It was a mistake to speak one's mind at any time, unless it perfectly matched your political purpose; and it never did.

You can never properly predict the future as it really turns out. So you are doing something a little different when you write science fiction. You are trying to take a different perspective on now.