A practical man can always make what he wants to do look like a noble sacrifice of personal inclinations to the welfare of the community.

We have searched the wide world over and not found forgetfulness.

By the hedgehog,’ said the smaller, grinning wickedly, ’but they’ll think twice before they play at ambuscades again!

Things are different from what I thought. They’re much worse.

What matters is that life is good. It has a lovely texture, like some rich cloth or fur, or the petals of flowers, and everything else worthwhile. And that’s as true for the last man as the first.

Not for the first time Richard reflected that this age’s vaunted ‘communications industry’ had chiefly provided people and nations with the means of frightening to death and simultaneously boring to extinction themselves and each other.

That is the trouble with a clear mind. For a little while you see things as they really are and you can accurately predict how they’re going to shape the future... and then suddenly you realize you’ve predicted yourself a week or a month into the future and you can’t live the intervening time any more because you’ve already imagined it in detail.

A scientist ought to have a healthy disregard for coincidences.

From all around came very faintly a low sad hum, as the unhoused bees mourned.

Then he turned and headed straight for home, but he took the long way, around the world.