Peregrine Wickwrackrum was of two minds about evil: when enough rules get broken, sometimes there is good amid the carnage.

When people speak of creating superhumanly intelligent beings, they are usually imagining an AI project.

Well, what do you know," Pham said. "Butterflies in jackboots.

Little fish risking everything for a piece of godhood...and not knowing heaven from hell, even when they find it.

All evil and good is petty before Nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that cannot be twisted to villainy or good, but which simply is.

He claimed that nearby gun thunder cleared the mind - but most everybody else agreed it made you daft.

Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers; deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation of all.