“People aren't rational. We're not thinking machines, we're - we're feeling machines that happen to think.”

“Maybe your empathy's just a comforting lie, you ever think of that? Maybe you think you know how the other person feels but you're only feeling yourself, maybe you're even worse than me. Or maybe we're all just guessing.”

“But deceleration is for pansies. We're headed for the stars.”

“(At least one theory suggests that while great apes and adultHumans are sentient, young Human children are not. I admit to acertain fondness for this conclusion; if childen aren't nonsentient,they're certainly psychopathic)”

“You know what happens when you keep a dog locked away from every living thing, except you visit once a day and kick the shit out of him?"Perreault laughed nervously. "Someone actually tried that?""What happens is, the dog's a social animal, and it gets so lonely it actually looks forward to the shit-kicking. It asks to be kicked. It begs.”

“I visited blathernodes, soaked myself in other people's opinions.”

“My genes done gone and tricked my brainBy making fucking feel so greatThat's how the little creeps attainTheir plan to fuckin' replicateBut brain's got tricks itself, you seeTo get the bang but not the biteI got this here vasectomyMy genes can fuck themselves tonight.- The R-Selectors, Trunclade”