The failure mode of clever is “asshole.

For as much as I hate the cemetery, I’ve been grateful it’s here, too. I miss my wife. It’s easier to miss her at a cemetery, where she’s never been anything but dead, than to miss her in all the places where she was alive.

In general there should be gay characters in YA because a) surprise, there are gay folks everywhere and b) in my opinion as a father, there’s not a damn thing wrong with my child encountering gay folks in her literature, because see point a).

Fear is a scavenger who feeds on the future; on what may be and what is possible, extending down the line of our lives.

Fear sits and smiles and is predatory, immobile and silent and serene; an observer who conserves his energy and is content to wait.

Damn real live people, getting in the way of peaceful ideals.

I'll say it: I want to see an ugly woman as a spokeswoman for a women's network. Ugly men are out there all the time – look at Larry King, for God's sake. He looks like someone's talking underwear. Why not give America a spokeswoman who ain't much to look at but is competent as Hell? If accomplishments actually count for women, this ought to be a no-brainer.

You can’t afford anthropomorphic biases when some of the aliens most like us would rather make human hamburgers than peace.

That’s what I’d ask you to do: Hope for peace. Because I know that I would love to be able to lay down my weapon and get to being a colonist. Just like you are. Just like I want to be.

Making peace is often a simple thing, but simple isn’t the same thing as easy.

I'm more interested in becoming a commercial writer, and unfortunately, commentary on my writing from a bunch of other unpublished writers is of little utility in that regard. Being a better writer is something of a moot point, since if you're not a commercial writer to some extent, very few people will know whether your writing is any good or not.

If your social consciousness seems stuck in 1975, 2014 is gonna be a rough ride.

Destiny gets compressed, you know, into just that small fraction of a second you have right in front of you at any one time. And there’s nothing romantic about keeping your head down to avoid getting shot, or trying to save a friend who’s been injured, or coming face to face with a creature who is as smart and mean and as terrified of dying as you are, and who wants to make sure that if someone is left on the ground there, it’s you and not it.

Creativity eventually comes from the need not to have ourselves or other people eaten by leopards.

I was getting away with something in my own way. But then I get here and saw you, brain-dead and with tubes coming out of every part of your body. And I realized I wasn't getting away with anything. Just like you didn't get away with anything. You were just born, fucked around for a while, got hit by a car and died, and that's your whole life story right there. You don't win by getting through all you life not having done anything.

Trust your weapon, it is almost certainly smarter than you are. Remember this and you may yet live.

Dreher laments we now live in a “post-Christian” America, but he’s wrong. The Americans who are standing with their loved ones and neighbors are in fact doing exactly what Jesus asked them to do, when he said that we should love each other as we love ourselves. It’s possible, however, that we live in a post-accepting-bigotry-cloaking-itself-in-the-raiments-of-Christ America. And, you know. I can live in that America just fine.

Rich people show their appreciation through favors. When everyone you know has more money than they know what to do with, money stops being a useful transactional tool. So instead you offer favors. Deals. Quid pro quos. Things that involve personal involvement rather than money. Because when you're that rich, your personal time is your limiting factor.

I do not mind when you tell me what you want and put that first instead of last.

Yes, he's an equal opportunity asshole," Szilard said. "And he's aware of it, which he thinks means it's okay.

Is it painful?" the groundskeeper asked. "I am asking for science.

To everyone who thinks writing a sequel should be easy because you've already clreated the universe: Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha! Heh. No.

What is it like when you lose someone you love?" Jane asked."You die, too. And you wait around for your body to catch up.

Part of what makes us human is what we mean to other people, and what people mean to us. I miss meaning something to someone, having that part of being human.

After our negotiations were completed, the dome would be imploded and launched toward the nearest black hole, so that none of its atoms would ever contaminate this particular universe again. I thought that last part was overkill.

I'm going to go pee. If the universe is bigger and stranger than I can imagine, it's best to meet it with an empty bladder.

The universe isn't going to be conquered by legions of geriatrics. No offense.

The universe is a big place. Maybe we're not in the best neighborhood.

Jack Holloway told me he would get the son of a bitch who killed my child and the mate of my child," Papa continued. "Jack Holloway did get that son of a bitch. Jack Holloway got you. You are the man who killed my child. Get off my planet, you son of a bitch.

Relations were never good (how comfortable can you really be with a race that sees you as a nutritious part of a complete breakfast).

What we don't know can't hurt us.

The rest of the rebels were recruited from the ranks of the young and excitable and had rather more enthusiasm than skill.

You would rather face a life without me than to have me choose a life I would not choose for myself.

Simply put, she was the one who had to put up with me. That she did so with love and patience and encouragement instead of strangling me, throwing my remains into a wood chipper, and then pretending she had never been married to me at all is a testament to the fact that she is, in fact, the single best person I know.

When you're a kid all you want to do is be somewhere else.

You do what you have to do to give people closure; it makes them feel better and it doesn’t cost you much to do it. I’d rather apologize for something I didn’t really care about, and leave someone on Earth wishing me well, than to be stubborn and have that someone hoping that some alien would slurp out my brains. Call it karmic insurance.

Colonization is the key to our race’s survival. It’s as simple as that. We must colonize or be closed off and contained by other races.

She was my friend. Briefly, she was my lover. She was braver than I ever would have been in the moment of death. And I bet she was a hell of a shooting star.

Leon had attached himself to me in Chicago like a fat, brat-and-beer-filled tick; I was amazed that someone whose blood was clearly half pork grease had made it to age seventy-five.

You say ‘cure.’ I hear ‘you’re not human enough.

The problem with aging is not that it's one damn thing after another—it's every damn thing, all at once, all the time.

1. Everyone is entitled to their opinion about the things they read (or watch, or listen to, or taste, or whatever). They’re also entitled to express them online.2. Sometimes those opinions will be ones you don’t like.3. Sometimes those opinions won’t be very nice.4. The people expressing those may be (but are not always) ass

Well, I miss my wife, you know," I said. "But I also miss the feeling of, I don’t know, comfort. The sense you’re where you’re supposed to be, with someone you’re supposed to be with.

I think back to the day I stood before my wife's grave for the final time, and turned away from it without regret, because I knew that what she was was not contained in that hole in the ground. I entered a new life and found her again, in a woman who was entirely her own person. When this life is done, I'll turn away from it without regret as well, because I know she waits for me, in another, different life.

The story of how I left Huckleberry begins -- as do all worthy stories -- with a goat

You just know this is going to be bad," Susan said."—but when I went to college," Harry continued, throwing a piece of bread at Susan, "if your roommate died, you were usually allowed to skip your finals for that semester. You know, because of the trauma.""And oddly enough, your roommate got to skip them, too," Susan said. "For much the same reason.

Then you're seventy-five, friends are dead, and you've replaced at least one major organ: you have to pee four times a night, and you can't go up a flight a stairs without being little winded -- and your're told you're in pretty good shape for your age. [....], in a decade you'll be eighty-five, and the only difference between you and a raisin will be that while you're both wrinkled and without a prostate, the raisin never had a prostate to begin with.

I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army.Visiting Kathy's grave was the less dramatic of the two.

It's not an effective protest if it's not pissing people off.