Not that I haven't leaped up into the blinding light of competence now and then. It's sustaining the altitude that defeats me.

Our children change us... whether they live or not.

Whether you function as welders or inspectors, the laws of physics are implacable lie-detectors. You may fool men. You will never fool the metal.

Children might or might not be a blessing, but to create them and then fail them was surely damnation.

The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them.

Women do desperately need models for power other than the maternal.

Miles exhaled carefully, faint with rage and reminded grief. He does not know, he told himself. He cannot know... "Ivan, one of these days somebody is going to pull out a weapon and plug you, and you're going to die in bewilderment, crying, "What did I say? What did I say?" "What did I say?" asked Ivan indignantly.