I poured Franklin another cup of coffee and he looked at me, his big eyes pleading. The deadheads always look like that when we reach this point. The… - Robert Sheckley

Your predator is close behind you and will infallibly be your death." "I don't doubt it," Carmody said, in a moment of strange calm." But in terms of long-range planning, I never did expect to get out of this Universe alive." "That is meaningless," the Prize said. "The fact is, you have lost everything." "I don't agree," Carmody said. "Permit me to point out that I am presently still alive." "Agreed. But only for the moment." "I have always been alive only for the moment," Carmody said. "I could never count on more. It was my error to expect more. That holds true, I believe, for all of my possible and potential circumstances." "Then what do you hope to achieve with your moment?" "Nothing," Carmody said. "Everything." "I don't understand you any longer," the Prize said. "Something about you has changed, Carmody. What is it?" "A minor thing," Carmody told him. "I have simply given up a longevity which I never possessed anyhow. I have turned away from the con game which the Gods run in their heavenly sideshow. I no longer care under which shell the pea of immortality might be found. I don't need it. I have my moment, which is quite enough." "Saint Carmody," the Prize said, in tones of deepest sarcasm. "No more than a shadow's breadth separates you and death! What will you do now with your pitiable moment?" "I shall continue to live it," Carmody said. "That is what moments are for.

But the description is not the described, as Amirra Tauba remarked as he chewed up the map of the galaxy!

Society as a whole, he reminded himself, must be protected against the individual, just as a human body must be protected against malfunction of any of its parts. As fond as you might be of your gall bladder, you would sacrifice it mercilessly if it were going to impair the rest of you.