I was not offended, my love. An insult is like a drink; it affects one only if accepted. And pride is too heavy baggage for my journey.

I've never understood how God could expect His creatures to pick the one true religion by faith-it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe.

Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.

A handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method.

Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy and censorship. When any government or church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man who has been hoodwinked in this fashion; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, whose mind is free. No, not the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything. You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

Pain is the basic mechanism built into us by millions of years of evolution which safeguards us by warning when something threatens our survival.

Do-gooding is like treating hemophilia - the real cure is to let hemophiliacs bleed to death...before they breed more hemophiliacs.