“In the new century science will defeat famine, boredom, and the plague, but . . . vital knowledge will become so elevated that nobody will know how anything works. . . . the good news is that everybody will be empowered; the bad news is nobody will understand why.”

“I have good news and bad news The good news is that the jeep is still where we left it, and I got the damned thing working again.""What's the bad news?""Something took my fuzzy dice.”

“The truth is, we know so little about life, we don't really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.”

“I have good news and bad news. The good news is there is life (of a kind) after this life. The bad news is that Jean-Claude Villeneuve is a necrophiliac.”

“Everybody knew everything now. Or did everybody know nothing? Nobody knew anything... Nobody could know everything.”

“Or he’d watch the news: more plagues, more famines, more floods, more insect or microbe or small-mammal outbreaks, more droughts, more chickenshit boy-soldier wars in distant countries. Why was everything so much like itself?”