Death hides within every religion. And at any time it can flash forth-not with healing in its wings but with poison, with that which wounds.

I am a reader. I am a writer. People assume I do these things to escape. You couldn't be more right. I'm escaping a world I don't like. A world I have no control in. In this world, I am nothing. I am a color, a height, a weight, a number. But in the world of books and writing, I am amazing. I am powerful. I am different. People are better. Worlds are endless. Change is possible. Life is manageable.

Guilt -- if there was any guilt -- spread out and diffused itself over everybody and everything. . . . Perhaps at some point in time, at some spot in the world, a moment of responsibility existed.

You mean old books?" "Stories written before space travel but about space travel." "How could there have been stories about space travel before --" "The writers," Pris said, "made it up.

"Do you have information that there's an android in the cast? I'd be glad to help you, and if I were an android would I be glad to help you?" "An android," he said, "doesn't care what happens to another android. That's one of the indications we look for." "Then," Miss Luft said, "you must be an android."

It really seems to me that in the midst of great tragedy, there is always the horrible possibility that something terribly funny will happen.

Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair.