“Ulysses was an elaborate prank, and our supposed intellectual elite continue to fall for it.”

“Intellectual understanding does not always bring visceral belief.”

“I'm just saying that I...I regret that everybody else has nineteen chances, and only I am limited to a single chance for my genes to continue.""Because you believe your genes would confer a great blessing upon the human race."Ram thought about this for a moment, "I suppose that's what every adolescent male believes with his whole heart.”

“America's intellectual community has never been very bright. Or honest. They're all sheep, following whatever the intellectual fashion of the decade happens to be. Demanding that everyone follow their dicta in lockstep. Everyone has to be open-minded and tolerant of the things they believe, but God forbid they should ever concede, even for a moment, that someone who disagrees with them might have some fingerhold of truth.”

“I suppose this means you can swim after all. Or am I supposed to tow you?""If you really try," said Loaf, grinning, "you might not die.”

“Will we be extinguished? What difference does it make then, the ones of us who had plans, what does it matter the work we’ve done? The children we’ve raised? He looked pointedly at Olhado. “What will it matter then, that you have such a big happy family, if you’re all erased in one instant by that … bomb? “Not one moment of my life with my family has been wasted,” said Olhado quietly. “But the point of it is to go on, isn’t it? To connect with the future?” “That’s one part, yes,” said Olhado. “But part of the purpose of it is now, is the moment. And part of it is the web of connections. Links from soul to soul. If the purpose of life was just to continue into the future, then none of it would have meaning, because it would be all anticipation and preparation. There’s fruition, Grego. There’s the happiness we’ve already had. The happiness of each moment. The end of our lives, even if there’s no forward continuation, no progeny at all, the end of our lives doesn’t erase the beginning.”

“Everything was a test. Or a lesson. Or a punishment from which he was supposed to learn a lesson, on which he would be tested later, and punished if he hadn't learned it.”