"There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good."And one says, "This is new, and therefore better."
"It's common platitude that knowledge is neutral but every now and then it would be useful if it was on your side and not theirs."
"Cham Loc knew little of affairs of state, but he was aware that whenever politicians talked about matters of inflexible principle, life was scheduled to become even more difficult that usual."
"“And there are more idiots than suckers in the world,” Barney said with a rueful chuckle. “One every second, not one a minute, right?”"
"If you so much as touch him, I’ll have to smash every bone in your body—twice, to make sure I didn’t miss any the first time. I don’t recommend the experience."
"A doctor is as good as the researchers backing him up."
"And by the way, it’s knowledge that moves mountains, you know, not faith."
"Colin felt a shiver pass down his spine. What man, granted total power, could refrain from using it? And would not his first target inevitably be his fellow men?"
"Now, listen. Marriage is binding as a civil contract, but it has—like all my favorite contracts—an escape clause. I make my living by spotting them."
"A determined elbow jabbed him in the ribs, and he had to come close enough to waking to resist the nudges. He put both arms around his petite, dark, power-packed wife, Midge, and uttered an optimistic grunt. Seven years of marriage enabled her to translate: “Five more minutes?”"
"Some people—mostly attractive women—don’t believe attractive women can act."
"I don’t believe you can cow people into loyalty. Subservience, maybe. But then you must always trust the retainer who guards your back."
"Men change their gods, and when they have changed them often enough they cease to fear their power."
"Amid the turmoil of change, old people could do no more than wonder what had hit them, and long without enthusiasm for the simpler past."
"Independence has limits. But dependence has, too. I want to set some for myself, that’s all."
"One of the first benefits of an improved standard of living, as he had already been superficially aware, is to postpone the age at which a person’s opinions congeal for life. Someone forced by poverty to avoid spending on enlarging his horizons the energy and time needed simply for staying alive adopted the attitudes, ready-made, of his environment. This was why students formed the backbone of so many revolutionary movements, for instance."
"A cripple can still be a person, but in what sense is a lunatic human? Humanity’s in the mind, in the tangle of thoughts spun by the brain, and once that’s gone what remains is human only in outward shape."
"—Why can I never visualize things turning out better as clearly as I can visualize the catastrophes I scraped past by a hair? “Everything for the best in the best of all possible worlds!” Hah!"
"He regarded himself as inhabiting a jungle in which behind masks of civilised behavior and conventional politeness everybody, doctor or not, was out for what he could get. No means of enhancing his reputation, status and income escaped him."
"—Among the other things lunatics make: their own version of truth."
"—What was I thinking earlier about lunatics making their own version of truth? Why specify lunatics?"
"—If I ever get good at hospital politics, I think I shall start to hate myself."
"Did you never hear it said that what sets the genius apart from the plodder is the ability to see what happens and not what he expects to happen?"
"I’m unattuned to happiness."
"SCANALYZER is the one single, the ONLY study of the news in depth that’s processed by General Technics’ famed computer Shalmaneser, who sees all, hears all, knows all save only that which YOU, Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere, wish to keep to yourselves."