“But Doc knew that was the key to successful lying. People judged what other people would do by what they themselves would do. You could tell a hell of a lot about a man by what he assumed others got up to. If you're looking for a thief, bet on the man who's always accusing his neighbors.”

“I've been asked by lots of people, "What happens if you do kill yourself?" They want to know about what it would be like for other people around you, like the person who would find your body, the other kids at school, whoever would have to clean up the blood, what your family holidays would be like.”

“Damen could tell that there was something not right about the whole thing, and he knew that his brother was at the bottom of it. One thousand credits could do a whole lot to help a man forget what he knew.”

“If man could do what in his wildest self-worship he can imagine, the grand result would be that he would be his own God, which is the Hell of Hells.”

“And we could all sit around and wonder and feel bad about each other and blame a lot of people for what they did or didn’t do or what they didn’t know. I don’t know. I guess there would always be someone to blame.”

“At the beginning of human history, man lost some of the basic animal instincts in which an animal's behavior is embedded and by which it is secured. Such security, like paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices. In addition to this, however, man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people tell him to do (totalitarianism).”