“You are enjoying the gift of genius. When ordinary people are confronted with multiple tragedies, the pain scarcely increases. They simple can't feel the extra burdens. But you have a greater capacity for suffering.”

“Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers; deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation of all.”

“Politics is good; when it works properly, disagreements get solved without people beating each other up. But when a regime knows its days are numbered, there's always the chance it may use its position to change the rules and make the debate it is losing irrelevant.”

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

“Technical people don't make good slaves. Without their wholehearted cooperation, things fall apart.”

“He claimed that nearby gun thunder cleared the mind - but most everybody else agreed it made you daft.”

“Little fish risking everything for a piece of godhood...and not knowing heaven from hell, even when they find it.”