“That's why it's always worth having a few philosophers around the place. One minute it's all is truth beauty and is beauty truth, and does a falling tree in the forest make a sound if there's no one there to hear it, and then just when you think they're going to start dribbling one of 'em says, incidentally, putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high place to shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy's ships would be a very interesting demonstration of optical principles.”

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

“If a tree falls in the forest when no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?If I scream in the silence, will anyone be around to hear it?”

“Lik the tree falling in the forest," says Ira."Huh?""You know, the old question - if a tree falls in a forest and no one's there to hear it, does it really make a sound?" Howie considers this. "Is it a pine forest, or oak?""What's the difference?""Oak is a much denser wood; it's more likely to be heard by someone on the freeway next to the forest where no one is.”

“If a tree fell in the forest, and you were the only one there to hear it; if its fall to the ground didn’t make a sound, would you panic in fear that you didn’t exist, or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness?”

“It's hard sometimes to remember why we do anything in the first place. It's nice to think there's a purpose, or even a real decision that turns everything in one direction, but that's not always true, is it? We just fall into our lives.”