Be boring, knowing everything. You have to give all that stuff up if you're going to muck about here.

All good technology should be used to piss off people's parents.

If you don't know it's impossible it's easier to do.

I noticed a long time ago that the Universe rewards belief systems. It doesn't really matter what you believe - it'll be there and waiting for you if you go and look for it. Decide the universe is, say, run by secret enormous teddy bears, and I can guarantee you'll immediately start running across evidence that this is true.

Reading is important. Books are important. Librarians are important. (Also, libraries are not child-care facilities, but sometimes feral children raise themselves among the stacks.)

And then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard self-satisfied strength of belief even for that.

It's not irrelevant, those moments of connection, those places where fiction saves your life. It's the most important thing there is.