...inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.

What was the point of education, he thought, if people went out afterward and used it?

They think written words are even more powerful,’ whispered the toad. ‘They think all writing is magic. Words worry them. See their swords? They glow blue in the presence of lawyers.

All the higher life forms scythed away, just like that. [ . . . ] Nothing but dust and fundamentalists.

The most prudent thing any intelligent animal can do, if it would prefer its descendents not to spend a lot of time on a slab with electrodes clamped to their brains or sticking mines on the bottom of ships, or being patronised by zoologists, is to make bloody certain humans don't find out about it.

This wasn't food - it was what food became if it had been good and gone to food heaven.

The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.