There's a reason why every human society has fiction. It teaches us how to be 'good,' to behave in a way that is for the benefit of the whole community.

All the stories are fictions. What matters is which fiction you believe.

To reach out to you when I'm in need, and to try to be here for you when you need me back. And to feel such tenderness when I look at you that I want to stand between you and all the world: and yet also to lift you up and carry you above the strong currents of life; and at the same time, I would be glad to stand always like this, at a distance, watching you, the beauty of you.

Well, how do I know that they don't know the answer unless I ask?

You frighten me, when you say there isn't time." "I don't see why. Christians have been expecting the imminent end of the world for millennia." "But it keeps not ending." "So far, so good.

That night Demosthenes published a scathing denunciation of the population limitation laws. People should be allowed to have as many children as they like, and the surplus population should be sent to other worlds, to spread mankind so far across the galaxy that no disaster, no invasion could ever threaten the human race with annihilation. "The most noble title any child can have," Demosthenes wrote, "is Third.

I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.