Secondhand experience breaks down a block from the car lot.

We read books to find out who we are.

Nothing said in words ever came out quite even. Things in words got twisted and ran together, instead of staying straight and fitting together.

Alone, no one wins freedom.

A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.

First sentences are doors to worlds.

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.... Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying.... Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies.