Science fiction is an amazing literature: plot elements that you would think would be completely worn out by now keep changing into surprising new forms.
They were a susitute. They were what you did when you couldn't have what you wanted.
The perfect metaphor, he said, looming up suddenly out of nowhere in the middle of your maiden voyage, unseen until it is nearly upon you, unavoidable even when you try to swerve, unexpected even thou...
Poor thing, consigned to a life of frivolousness and wretched things for breakfast. Not allowed to go to school or do anything worthwhile, and eel pie besides.
No, I said finally.Slowness in Answering, she said into the handheld. When's the last time you slept?1940 I said promptly, which is the problem with Quickness in Answering.
Eureka!s like the one Archimedes had when he stepped in a bathtub and suddenly realized the answer to the problem of testing metals' density are few and far between, and mostly it's just trying and fa...
But the vital thing is that we act. We do not rely on hope alone, though hope is our bulwark, our light through dark days and darker nights. We also work, and fight, and endure, and it does not matter...
Of legend. It was impossible to imagine it overrun with the plague, the dead carts full of bodies being pulled through the narrow streets, the colleges boarded up and abandoned, and everywhere the dyi...
To do something for someone or something you loved—England or Shakespeare or a dog or the Hodbins or history—wasn’t a sacrifice at all. Even if it cost you your freedom, your life, your youth.
This is the Victorian era, she said. Women didn't have to make sense.
This gave me an early taste for humorous authors, of which there were—and are—far too few (though there are lots who labor under the misapprehension that they're funny.)
The voices didn’t join in this time, as she hadn’t spoken, but to her surprise, they all thought in chorus. — LEWIS CARROLL, Through the Looking-Glass
TO ALL THEambulance driversfirewatchersair-raid wardensnursescanteen workersairplane spottersrescue workersmathematiciansvicarsvergersshopgirlschorus girlslibrariansdebutantesspinstersfishermenretired...
One of the first symptoms of time-lag is a tendency to maudlin sentimentality, like an Irishman in his cups or a Victorian poet cold-sober.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. —Monty Python’s Flying Circus
Insecure, ill-dressed chaos theorist desires intelligent, insightful, incandescent trends researcher. Must be SC.
Don't they know science doesn't work like that? You can't just order scientific breakthroughs. They happen when you are looking at something you've been working on for years and suddenly see a connect...
Do you want to see his picture? She pulled out her phone and began busily swiping, and at the next stoplight, held it over for Briddey to see. His name’s Xander.
Maybe I should join It’s Only Brunch. It’s like JustDinner, but with mimosas.
Tomorrow at the press conference would be dreadful. She would be surrounded by nice young men who spoke Big Business or Computer or Bachelor on the Make, and she would not understand a word they said....