No one knew where you were before you were born, but when you were born, it wasn't long before you found you'd arrived with your return ticket already punched.
No one actually saw it land, which raised the interesting philosophical point: When millions of tons of angry elephant come spinning through the sky, but there is no one to hear it, does it - philosop...
Newt had always suspected that people who regularly used the word community were using it in a very specific sense that excluded him and everyone he knew.
Needless to say, they refused to submit to the Empire, conducting such a persistent guerrilla war that the Romans gave up hope of conquering Scotland, and the Wee Free Men remained both wee and free.
Music, landscape gardening, architecture—there was no start to his talents.
Koan ninety-seven: Do unto otters as you would have them do unto you. Hmm. No real help there. Besides, he'd occasionally been unsure that he'd written that one down properly, although it certain had...
I’m made up of the memories of my parents and grandparents, all my ancestors. They’re in the way I look, in the color of my hair. And I’m made up of everyone I’ve ever met who’s changed the way I thin...
It's an unfair world, Child. Be glad you have friends.
It will certainly show what our ancestors would be thinking if they were alive today. People have often speculated about this. Would they approve of modern society, they ask, would they marvel at pres...
It was turning out to be one of those days. The sort you got every day.
It was no use getting angry with Wullie; he lived in a Wullie-shaped world of his own. You had to think diagonally.
It was nice to think that mankind made a distinction between blowing their planet to bits by accident and doing it by design.
It was never easy being a witch. Oh, the broomstick was great, but to be a witch you needed to be sensible, so sensible that sometimes it hurt. You dealt with the reality—not what people wanted.
It was much better to imagine men in some smokey room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn't then y...
It takes an unusual man to make up a hymn in a hurry, but such a man was Captain Roberts. He knew every hymn in and sang his way through them loudly and joyously when he was on watch, which had been...
It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done. A person ignorant of the possibility of failure can be a half-brick in the path of the bic...
It doesn’t matter!’ snapped the Metatron. ‘The whole point of the creation of the Earth and Good and Evil—’ ‘I don’t see what’s so triffic about creating people as people and then gettin’ upset ’cos t...
Insofar as he'd formed any opinion of her, it was that she suffered from misplaced gentility and the mistaken belief that etiquette meant good breeding. She mistook mannerisms for manners.
Inside every lump of coal there's a diamond waiting to get out.
In fact no gods anywhere play chess. They haven’t got the imagination. Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding...