"True friends will always push you towards the great possibilities of your future, false friends will always chain you to the mistakes in your past."

"We learn from Plutarch, that this was the theme of one of the hymns of Orpheus, so celebrated in the fabulous ages of Greece. It was brought by him from the banks of the Nile; and we even find in his …"

"“Ah! I see what you’re doing,” Alex said. “You’re trying to make flying out to Charon and dodging radiation flares sound like a good idea. It’s that whole ‘I’ll put a shitty idea next to a really shit…"

"Lord!" he said, "when you sell a man a book you don't sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue — you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night — …"

"Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal."