There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." A Libertarian Movement slogan - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, 1907.

Nothing could go wrong because nothing had...I meant "nothing would." No - Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive situations - conjugations that would make the French literary tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple.

There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.

Every law that was ever written opened up a new way to graft.

Humans hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn - when they do, which isn't often - on their own, the hard way.

Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudointellectual masturbation . . . whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce -- render emotional -- his audience, each time.

I never do anything I don't want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it.