The bugs are not like us. The Pseudo-Arachnids aren’t even like spiders. They are arthropods who happen to look like a madman’s conception of a giant intelligent spider, but their organization, psychological and economic, is more like that of ants or termites; they are communal entities, the ultimate dictatorship of the hive.

Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily.

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them.

One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.

There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized. Or even cured.

Fulfillment in life is loving a good woman and killing a bad man.

A community where everyone is a ruthless murderer, with handy access to death-dealing devices, is a very polite community.