They knew many things but had no idea why. And strangely this made them more, rather than less, certain that they were right.

If the item of stolen property had been anything other than a book, it would have been confiscated. But a book is different - it is not just a material possession but the pathway to an enlightened mind, and thence to a well-ordered society.

It is exciting to discover electrons and figure out the equations that govern their movement; it is boring to use those principles to design electric can openers. From here on out, it's all can openers.

The franchise and the virus work on the same principle, what thrives in one place will thrive in another. You just have to find a sufficiently virulent business plan, condense it into a three-ring binder ― its DNA ― Xerox it, and embed it in the fertile line of a well-traveled highway, preferably one with a left turn lane. Then the growth will expand until it runs up against its property lines.

Two tires fly. Two Wail. A bamboo grove, all chopped down From it, warring songs.

I just assume I'm not invisible. I assume I'm wearing fluorescent clothes, and there's a million-dollar bounty going to the first driver who manages to hit me. And I ride on that assumption.

And it happened all the time that the compromise between two perfectly rational alternatives was something that made no sense at all.