“The actual truth has never written about any war, and this will be no exception.”

“The flush toilet, more than any single invention, has 'civilized' us in a way that religion and law could never accomplish.”

“Just one question, you arrogant fucking cocksucker" said Locke. "I'll grant the Lamora part is easy to spot; the truth is, I didn't know about the apt translation when I took the name. I borrowed it from this old sausage dealer who was kind to me once, back in Catchfire before the plague. I just liked the way it sounded."But what the fuck" he said slowly, "ever gave you the idea that Locke was the first name I was actually born with?”

“When Rachel Carson accepted the National Book Award, she said, 'if there is poetry in my book about the sea it is not because I deliberately put it there but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out poetry.”

“I thought about mistakes I had made in the past. I thought about when things went wrong. And I realized it was never an issue of intent, but of intensity. I was a good guy, recall.”

“I'm not worried about you because you don't get it your own way. You never have, and believe it or not, that makes you extraordinary.”

“The advance of our technology is coincidental with the loss of our appetite for ethical questions that ought to attend the implications of these new powers. . . In the name of diversity, any idea is regarded as worthy as any other; any nonsense is entitled to a forum, a full hearing, and equal time.”