The body was an organic machine, period, and God was a figment of its fitful imagination.

Was there anything quite so painful, so fraught with the possibilities of hurt, as gift giving within a family?

Soon would come the night in which there was no more work – not the work of the hands, nor the work of the mind, nor the work of the heart.

Still, for all that, her life had lacked passion. The demons had never come for her.

Education teaches children to lose interest in what matters most to them.

Just because you pretend the universe doesn't have teeth doesn't mean you won't get eaten in the end.

But men are such strange creatures, really. I think most of them would rather we weren’t around at all, so they could just spend time mooning over each other. Hero worship and all that stuff.

The past is the past. It’s the present we should worry about.

It was a failure of pedagogical nerve, she reminded herself, to give up on a student.

All desire, Tracy had had occasion since to think, is to some degree monstrous.

I’m talking about other kinds of hunger. Desire.

No true friendship takes account of credit and debt. It gives freely, without thought of compensation or reward.

Never dare to turn your subconscious mind into a shelter for thoughts or beliefs that aren't working in your favor.

Things don't change, only the way you look at them.

Everybody has his own interpretation of a painting he sees.

Every time you turn on an electric light, you are making another brainless baby.

his voice was centuries old

I think the climate is too important to say we are going to wait until all our economic woes are over before we act effectively.

My features are completely ethnic.

Logic has made me hated in the world.

Beware the viper in your closet. Isn’t that another thing you’re always saying, Father? Ambition and jealousy are at the heart of all betrayals. (Ryssa)