"Think. You have had your dealings with our bureaucracy. It is impossible not to, especially if one is a foreigner. Believe me, when we set our minds to it we can tangle, obstruct, and bring to a dead halt a herd of stampeding elephants."

“Life isn’t a fairy tale; the knight who kills the dragon doesn’t necessarily get the princess. So what? Who’d want to live in a cosmos less rich and various than the real one?”

“On our Earth, we’ve perforce learned all the knavery there is to know.”

“Men, whose span is cruelly short, rush nonetheless to death in their youth as to a maiden’s arms.”

“It was lonely, not even knowing yourself.”

“Heim ignored the mob scene on the 3V, rested his eyes on the cold serenity of the Milky Way and thought that this, at least, would endure.”

“What’s the point of our living all these centuries if we haven’t grown up even a little?”