If social stability goes pear-shaped, you have a choice between anarchy and dictatorship. Most people will opt for more security, even if they have to give up some personal freedom.

Once in a while, Jimmy would make up a word but he never once got caught out. ... He should have been pleased by his success with these verbal fabrications, but instead he was depressed by it. The memos telling him he'd done a good job meant nothing to him; all they proved was that no one was capable of appreciating how clever he had been. He came to understand why serial killers sent helpful clues to the police.

History, as I recall, was never this winsome, and especially not this clean, but the real thing would never sell: most people prefer a past in which nothing smells.

Most mothers worry when their daughters reach adolescence but I was the opposite. I relaxed, I sighed with relief. Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life sized.

There are some virtues to not saying what you think all the time.

Science and fiction both begin with similar questions: What if? Why? How does it all work? But they focus on different areas of life on earth.

Some of our earliest writing, in cuneiform, was about who owes what.