We came here for a small, informal meeting. We find you've turned it into a circus. Well, if you're going to have a circus, you've got to have elephants.

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.

It's an indulgence to sit in a room and discuss your beliefs as if they were a juicy piece of gossip.

I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes, will endure --will endure longer than his home planet, will spread out to the other planets, to the stars, and beyond, carrying with him his honesty, his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage --and his noble essential decency. This I believe with all my heart.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

If tempted by something that feels 'altruistic,' examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it!

The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any other con man. But it is a lovely work if you can stomach it.