It is either coincidence piled on top of coincidence," said Hollus, "or it is deliberate design.

A science fiction writer should try to combine the intimately human with the grandly cosmic.

Secrecy was the problem; transparency the obvious cure.

Do you think it's possible that things that seem to be discrete in three dimensions might all be part of the same bigger object in four dimensions? ...What if humanity- that collective noun we so often employ- really is, at a higher level, a singular noun? What it what we perceive in three dimensions as seven billion individual human beings are really all just aspects of one giant being?

Since ancient times, the philosophers' secret has always been this: we know that God does not exist, or, at least, if he does, he's utterly indifferent to our individual affairs--but we can't let the rabble know that; it's the fear of God, the threat of divine punishment and the promise of divine reward, that keeps in line those too unsophisticated to work out questions of morality on their own.

The right things to do are those that keep our violence in abeyance; the wrong things are those that bring it to the fore.

It is either coincidence piled on top of coincidence," said Hollus, "or it is deliberate design.