The name of the new religion," said Rumfoord, "is The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent.

There was no immunity to cuckoo ideas on Earth.

The trouble with being a secular humanist is that we don't have a congregation. We don't meet so it's a very flimsy tribe, but there's a wonderful quotation from Nietzsche. Nietzsche said, Only a person of deep faith can afford the luxury of skepticism. Something perfectly is going on. I do not doubt it, but the explanations I hear do not satisfy me.

Honest to God, Bill, the way things are going, all I can think of is that I'm a character in a book by somebody who wants to write about somebody who suffers all the time.

Only nut cases want to be president. This was true even in high school. Only clearly disturbed people ran for class president.

He couldn't tell the difference between one politician and another. They were all formlessly enthusiastic chimpanzees to him.

That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones.