"God could hardly damn me for a coward, great cosmic exemplar of laissez-faire that he is."

“He forgave these Tropemen, then felt contempt for himself for the presumption of extending forgiveness, then forgave again, then cursed his own vanity, forgave once more, condemned his presumption, and at last forgave even himself.”

“Extinction confers on the has-been the same mythological status that imagination confers on the never-was.”

“What motivates you, then? Please don’t tell me altruism. I am not quite so gullible as that.”

“I have thought a little about a telepathic community, and I have decided that it would most likely create either a thoroughly paranoiac or a thoroughly homogeneous unit of individuals. Complete suspicion and hostility in the one instance, total harmony and concord in the other. I do not like either alternative.”

“Necessary is often the mother of light fingers instead of invention.”

“Time, as it always does, passed.”