It is well not to spend one's symbols improvidently. - Gene Wolfe

That the environment should respond to human thought. That is the core of magic and the oldest dream of mankind.

We may be damned at last, by God or our consciences; and though I've met a good many people who profess to credit no God, I've never met one who believed he had no conscience—this though he could no more produce it for my inspection than I could point out the God he demanded to see.

It will come as no surprise to those of you in the book trade when I say that although books do not cause cancer, books in general do not sell as well as cigarettes.