“I never guessed I could cry so hard my face hurt.”

“Once upon a time I was such a good liar; I could talk the fish right into my mouths.”

“The illusion of self-awareness. Happy automatons, running on trivial programs. I'll bet you never guess. From the inside, how can you?”

“So much technology, so little talent.”

“It is an edged cliché that the world is most pleasant in the years of a Waning Sun. It is true that the weather is not so driven, that everywhere there is a sense of slowing down, and most places experience a few years where the summers do not burn and the winters are not yet overly fierce. It is the classic time of romance. It's a time that seductively beckons higher creatures to relax, postpone. It's the last chance to prepare for the end of the world.”

“Here we begin frank speculation. And since we are speculating, we'll use those powerful pseudo-laws, the Principles of Mediocrity and Minimal Assumption.”

“Sometimes the biggest disasters aren't noticed at all - no one's around to write horror stories.”