“Art is an optimist,” Nadia said to Maya as they walked on. “Art is an idiot,” Maya replied. - Kim Stanley Robinson

“You damned liberals.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you’re too soft-hearted to ever actually do anything.”

Why were the good days always so short? Moment to moment, day by day—each so full, and oh so lovely—and then gone forever, gone before there was a chance to absorb them properly, to really live them.

Fights over ideas are the most vicious of all. If it were merely food, or water, or shelter, we would work something out. But in the realm of ideas one can become idealistic.