Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.

Ayn Rand is a bloody socialist compared to me.

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.

No storyteller has been able to dream up anything as fantastically unlikely as what really does happen in this mad Universe.

Have you ever known me to be rude to a lady?" "I have seen you be intentionally rude to a woman. I have never seen you be rude to a lady.

But space travel can't ease the pressure on a planet grown too crowded not even with today's ships and probably not with any future ships-because stupid people won't leave the slopes of their home volcano even when it starts to smoke and rumble. What space travel does do is drain off the best brains: those smart enough to see a catastrophe before it happens, and with the guts to pay the price-abandon home, wealth, friends, relatives, everything-and go. That's a tiny fraction of one percent. But that's enough.

Patriotism is not sentimental nonsense. Nor something dreamed up by demagogues. Patriotism is as necessary a part of man's evolutionary equipment as are his eyes, as useful to the race as eyes are to the individual.