His teeth sang in their individual sockets like tuning forks, each one pitch-perfect and clear as ethanol.

A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.

The past is past, the future unformed. There is only the moment, and that is where he prefers to be.

Things aren't different. Things are things.

The culture is still there, and people are still doing it. I imagine some people are doing it very well indeed. As for me, it definitely was my native literary culture. Science fiction was where I'm from, but on the way to now, I went through a lot of other territory, and I wasn't really that culturally conventional an SF writer when I started.

You needed a new pancreas. The one we bought for you frees you from a dangerous dependency.” “Thanks, but I was enjoying that dependency.

I have this prejudice that trilogies are long, three-volume novels.