Once every hundred years, the Los Angeles smog rolls away for a single night, leaving the air as clean as interstellar space. That way the gods can see if Los Angeles is still there. If it is, they roll the smog back so they won’t have to look at it.

Sometimes there’s no point in giving up.

Mother Nature doesn’t care if you’re having fun.

Boredom is my worst enemy. It’s killed a lot of my friends, but it won’t get me. When I get bored, I go risk my life somewhere.

The best advice I was ever given was on my twenty-first birthday when my father said, Son, here’s a million dollars. Don’t lose it.

They do not use lasers, they do not use radio, they do not use hyperwave. What are they using for communication? Telepathy? Written messages? Big mirrors?” “Parrots,” Louis suggested. He got up to join them at the door to the control room. “Huge parrots, specially bred for their oversized lungs. They’re too big to fly. They just sit on hilltops and scream at each other.

We play your part in order to understand you, but you each seem to play a thousand parts. It makes things difficult for an honest, hard-working bug-eyed monster.

Did I still remember how to let my mind play?

Gradually he was learning the size, the scale of the Ringworld. It was unpleasant, like all learning processes. He.

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.