"If during the last thousand seconds you have received any High-Beyond-protocol packets from "Arbitration Arts," discard them at once. If they have been processed, then the processing site and all locally netted sites must be physically destroyed at once. We realize that this means the destruction of solar systems, but consider the alternative. You are under Transcendent attack."

“Peregrine Wickwrackrum was of two minds about evil: when enough rules get broken, sometimes there is good amid the carnage.”

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

“All his life he had lived by the law. Often his job had been to stop acts of revenge....And now revenge was all that life had left for him.”

“Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.”

“If there be only hours, at least learn what there is time to learn.”

“The voice was gentle, like a scalpel petting the short hairs of your throat.”