“Or maybe go sci-fi. You sorta look like that guy who roamed outer space everybody's so crazy about." "Malcolm Reynolds?" asked Rook.”

“«All the Amazon guys around Seattle were also aware of the trend. They all knew that, someday, European haute couture would sell online. The problem was that feat couldn’t be done by anybody from Amazon. Because Amazon guys were hacker geeks and cheesy hicks. Amazon had been invented to sell sci-fi books. The least chic thing in the world.The European couture biz would never go anywhere near a dorky sci-fi geek like Jeff Bezos. As for Jeff himself, Jeff would much rather conquer outer space with his private rocket than ever dress the First Lady of France.»”

“So, basically if we keep trying to save the country and maybe the world from a bunch of murderous assholes with outer space weapons, then we're the bad guys?""In a nutshell.""Then, hey ... let's be bad guys.”

“The bookcase was filled with computer games, history books, and sci-fi novels in about equal proportions. Odd reading choices, maybe, but I just thought of it as past and future history.”

“«“Looks like your sci-fi prediction came true right away, Xavier.”“That can be gratifying,” mused the novelist. “But not all the time.”»”

“It was The Gospel From Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space...[who] made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes. The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought...: "Oh, boy - they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!" And that thought had a brother: "There are right people to lynch." Who? People not well connected. So it goes.”