“Nothing can take the sting off the world's economic problems like watching millionaires present each other golden statues.”

“One of the reasons that millionaires are economically successful is that they think differently.”

“The statue of the Laughing Buddha act as a good friend. Whenever we are off the track, his smiling face can bring us back to the present moment, to a positive mood.”

“They grope before them like blind people and find each the other as they would a door. Almost like children that dread the night, they press close into each other. And yet they are not afraid. There is nothing that might be against them: no yesterday, no morrow; for time is shattered. And they flower from its ruins.He does not ask: 'Your husband?'She does not ask: 'Your name?'For indeed they have found each other, to be unto themselves a new generation.They will give each other a hundred new names and take them all off again, gently, as one takes an earring off.”

“Hope is the greatest madness. What can we expect of a world that we enter with the assurance of seeing our fathers and mothers die? A world where, if two beings love each other and give their lives to each other, both can be sure that one will watch the other perish?”

“The Imperial forces must keep their hands off, but they find that they can do much even so. Each sector is encouraged to be suspicious of its neighbors. Within each sector, economic and social classes are encouraged to wage a kind of war with each other. The result is that all over Trantor it is impossible for the people to take united action. Everywhere, the people would rather fight each other than make a common stand against the central tyranny and the Empire rules without having to exert force.”