If you asked me to marry you all over again today I'd say yes, said Valentine. And if I had only met you for the first time today, I'd ask.

The education that prepared me was my general education classes, which I tried to avoid when I was a stupid undergraduate, but which gave me the foundation of general knowledge that makes a career as a writer possible.

Come into our home, daughters of Earth; dwell in our tunnels, harvest our fields; what we cannot do, you are now our hands to do for us. Blossom, trees; ripen, fields; be warm for them, suns; be fertile for them, planets: they are our adopted daughters, and they have come home.

I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration.

Human beings may be miserable specimens, in the main, but we can learn, and, through learning, become decent people.

God, our genes, our environment, or some stupid programmer keying in code at an ancient terminal - there's no way free will can ever exist if we as individuals are the result of some external cause.

Then you're dead, too, sweet little sister.' Oh, yes,' said Valentine. 'They'll believe that. "I didn't know it would kill Andrew. And when he was dead, I didn't know it will kill Valentine too.