Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody--a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules.

Of course (said Oryx), having a money value was no substitute for love. Every child should have love, every person should have it. . . . but love was undependable, it came and then it went, so it was good to have a money value, because then at least those who wanted to make a profit from you would make sure you were fed enough and not damaged too much. Also there were many who had neither love nor a money value, and having one of these things was better than having nothing.

Love is giving, marriage is buying and selling. You can't put love into a contract.

You hear doom and gloom about the Internet ruining young people's command of English - that's nonsense.

We battled in secret, undeclared, and after a while I no longer fought back because I never won. The only defense was flight, invisibility.

Science fiction is filled with Martians and space travel to other planets, and things like that.

The future of narrative? Built in, part of the human template. Not going away. The future of the codex book, with pages and so forth? A platform for transmitting narratives.