So from then on, he looked at all his choices and said, What would a good person do, and then did it. But he has now learned something very important about human nature. If you spend your whole life pretending to be good, then you are indistinguishable from a good person. Relentless hypocrisy eventually becomes the truth.

As history shows us, when colonization is voluntary, people will self-select better than any testing system. It’s like those foolish attempts to control immigration to American based on the traits that were deemed desirable, when in fact the only trait that defines Americans historically is “descended from somebody willing to give up everything to live there.” Willingness is the single most important test.

Doesn't it make you wonder about your own sexual identity, not to mention your sanity, that the two women you love are, respectively, a virtual woman existing only in the transient ansible connections between computers and a woman whose soul is in fact that of a man who is the husband of your mother?

I don't hate you, I love you, you're part of myself, you're my heart and when you go it's my heart torn out and carried away--

A character is what he does, yes - but even more, a character is what he means to do.

The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them.

From now on the enemy is more clever than you. From now on the enemy is stronger than you. From now on you are always about to lose.