He saw a chair, and a ship that was not a ship; he saw a man with two shadows, and he saw that which cannot be seen — a concept; the adaptive, self-seeking urge to survive, to bend everything that can...
But I don’t know what the right thing to do is; I sometimes think I know too much, I’ve studied too much, learned too much, remembered too much. It all seems to average out, somehow; like dust that se...
Action appealed to him most; it was the warriors' creed. When in doubt, do.
It hung above the livid, bruised land like an admonition
You been mud wrestling..?' 'Only with my conscience.' 'Really? Who won?' 'Well, it was one of those rare occasions when violence really doesn't solve anything.
What is any achievement, however great it was, once time itself is dead?
Us with our busy, busy little lives, finding no better way to pass our years than in competitive disdain.
Three; - and this would be sufficient reason by itself - what are we supposed to be about, Sma? What is the Culture? What do we believe in, even if it hardly ever is expressed, even if we are embarras...
This isn’t Ospin! These aren’t the Dataversities!
Thing about emergencies, he said, sounding weary. Rarely occur when they’d be convenient. May
Thing about emergencies, he said, sounding weary. Rarely occur when they’d be convenient.
They sought to take the unfairness out of existence, to remove the mistakes in the transmitted message of life which gave it any point or advancement...
So how many infants have to grow up under the shadow of the mushroom cloud, and just possibly die screaming inside the radioactive rubble, just for us to be sure we’re doing the right thing? How certa...
He felt great. spa'dassins digladiate; ziffidae and xebecs contend! gol-iard dunking!
He could not believe that ordinary people in the Culture really wanted the war, no matter how they had voted. They had their communist Utopia. They were soft and pampered and indulged, and the Contact...
Everything about us, everything around us, everything we know and can know of is composed ultimately of patterns of nothing; that’s the bottom line, the final truth. So where we find we have any contr...
But there we are. Some things never do make perfect sense. There must be some explanation, and it is perhaps a little like the Doctrine of the Perfect Partner. We must be content to know that she exis...
Birds and airfish, singly and in vast flocks that dimmed the sun, filled the spaces between the ocean and the clouds, lazily trailing one long wing across the brief smooth curvings between the waves b...
All food, comfort, energy, shelter, space, fuel and sustenance gravitates naturally and easily away from those who need it most and towards those who need it least.
A federated disgust, a galaxy of scorn. Us with our busy, busy little lives, finding no better way to pass our years than in competitive disdain.