Poul Anderson

"“Do you know,” said Maclaren, “there is one sin which is punished with unfailing certainty, and must therefore be the deadliest sin in all time. Stupidity."

"There really wasn’t much in a man’s life that mattered. But those few things mattered terribly."

"The universe held as many surprises as it did stars. No, more. That was its glory. But someday one of them was bound to kill you."

"The city was breaking state and national laws every day—it had to—and the governor was outraged. He wanted to bring the whole state back under his own authority. It wasn’t an unreasonable wish, but th…"

"We, the proper civil government, approved your defense measures of the past several years, though you are aware that I myself always considered them excessive. When I think of the prosperity that tax …"

"’Tis colder outside than a well-born maiden’s heart."

"The air was cold and smelled of earth. Birds twittered. “Beyond one or two hundred years back,” Havig once said to me, “the daytime sky is always full of wings."

"Here was more than a question of law; it was a matter of whose will should prevail."