“What does crying ever really do for us? It doesn't solve our problems. It doesn't make us run faster or shoot better. If anything, crying just delays the solution to our problems.”

“I told her running away from your problems doesn't solve anything. Really it just hurts the people who count on you.”

“Furthermore, worrying about people and problems doesn't help. It doesn't solve problems, it doesn't help other people, and it doesn't help us. It is wasted energy.”

“But it's tempting, isn't it, to give somebody like Olympia or Fenleigh a taste of their own medicine? To get even?'I agree it's tempting. *Really* tempting. But it doesn't solve anything. It just perpetuates the problem by making us as bad as them. And we don't need any more of them, do we?”

“Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never really was any problem.”

“That's what this book is about: other worlds, what awaits us on them, what they tell us about ourselves, and - given the urgent problems our species now faces - whether it makes sense to go. Should we solve those problems first? Or are they a reason to go?”