Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day's receipts.

I tell you, lad, that men will believe is one says, "The Gods say..." They will believe if one says, "I had a Vision..." They will believe if one says, "It was told me on a tablet of hidden gold..." But, if one says, "History teaches," then they will not believe.

I have always lived in a world in which I'm just a spot in history. My life is not the important point. I'm just part of the continuum, and that continuum, to me, is a marvelous thing. The history of life, and the history of the planet, should go on and on and on and on. I cannot conceive of anything in the universe that has more meaning than that.

It may be important to write a book that doesn't come up to what I would like to have rather than to write no book at all.

Creation has the truth written all over it - the age of the universe, the history of the world - but nine-tenths of mankind either don't know it or think it's a sham, because it isn't what their book or their prophet says, and it isn't cozy or manipulable enough.

To the Chasmites, truth is determined by how well it fits their expectations, and doesn't that sound familiar? They have consistently refused to have a god contest, and I fear they will have to encounter the godlet rather forcibly before they believe there is anything there at all.

I think... girls have a hard time being interesting. It’s actually easier to be famous, or notorious, than it is to be interesting. In our world, girls climb very well until they hit puberty-sexual maturity-and then they begin to fall out of the tree. They start role-playing instead of thinking, flirting instead of learning. They start admiring how smart the boys are-or how athletic or how handsome-instead of concentrating on their own intelligence.