I usually like to interact with people who don't speak until it's necessary but I was intimidated by Carl's physique. I didn't feel inferior so much as incompatible. Carl existed on a plane where success was measured by physical feats. He had a brain because his body needed it, rather than the opposite. I didn't understand such people. I didn't know what they wanted, or might do.

People resist a census, but give them a profile page and they'll spend all day telling you who they are.

My own fault. The equipment had safeties but your primary piece of protective equipment was your brain. There was a presumption that anyone entering this room was intelligent enough to keep away from hot things, sharp things, and things carrying large stores of momentum.

Some people would break the rules to get things done and some wouldn't; it was simple as that. John didn't have much use for the latter.

That's the thing you learn about values: they're what people make up to justify what they did.

The most fundamental thing about a person is desire. It defines them. Tell me what a person wants, truly wants, and I'll tell you who they are, and how to persuade them.

She had been in situations like this, where people said, Convince me, and in none of those had they actually wanted to be convinced. She could lay down a perfect argument and they just invented new bullshit on the spot to justify why the answer was still no. When people said, Convince me, she knew it didn’t mean they had an open mind. It meant they had power and wanted to enjoy it a minute.