Of course, they (i. e., demons) had always been observed with some regularity, but that could usually be ascribed to an overabundance of piety or wine or imagination. Take your pick.

It is not faith per se that creates the problem; it is conviction, the notion that one cannot be wrong, that opposing views are necessarily invalid and may even be intolerable.

The uplifters are forever running around telling blockheads they would do better if they would believe in themselves. But they already do. That is why they are blockheads.

The measure of a civilization is in the courage, not of its soldiers, but of its bystanders.

... the truth is that when your people don't tell you what you need to know, it's a failure of leadership.

We could never know who we truly were until we heard the whispers of the stars.

Boundaries have no existence save on charts or in small minds. Nature does not draw lines.

Man has always seen himself the peak of creation. The part of the universe that thinks. The purpose for it all. It's no doubt a gratifying view, but the universe may have a different opinion.

Show me what a people admire, and I will tell you everything about them that matters.

Universal deities ... never seem to smile. Not in any culture. What's the point of having omnipotence if you don't enjoy it?

The problem is that too often the only people who can act don't want change. Power doesn't so much corrupt as it breeds conservatism.

Well, I don’t want to be king, I want to be real.

A successful individual typically sets his next goal somewhat but not too much above his last achievement.

God did not create evil. Just as darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of God.

I've never understood people who play up the artifice of music.

There must be some good in the cocktail party to account for its immense vogue among otherwise sane people.

Alexia gave in to his demanding touch, but only, of course, because he sounded so pathetic. It had nothing, whatsoever to do with her own quickening heartbeat.

American business, while it does not frown on helping the human race, frowns on people who start right in helping the human race without first proving that they can sell things to it.

The trouble with shooting people, Edie Banister now remembers, is that it's so hard to do just one.

Brotherhood doesn't come in a package. It is not a commodity to be taken down from the shelf with one hand - it is an accomplishment of soul-searching, prayer and perseverance.

Too many heroes in my life. All gone.