Actually, there are never motives behind actions. All actions are fixed. What we call motives evidently are rationalizations by the helpless observin… - James Blish

He had been greatly talented once, but the loss of gifted experimenters to administrative posts was the curse of all research organizations.

The Venetians had never been more than formally and outwardly allegiant to the Church from at least their second treaty with Islam in the mid-fifteenth century. The highest pinnacle of their ethics was that of dealing fairly with each other, and since there was at the same time no sweeter music to Venetian ears than the scream of outrage from the outsider who had discovered too late that he had been cheated, this left them little that they felt they ought to say in the confessional. Most of them seem to regard the now obvious downfall of almost all of human civilization as a plot to divert the tourist trade to some other town—probably Istanbul, which they still referred to as Constantinople.

"Something tells me that this isn't going to be as simple as it looks."
"What is?" Wald said, raising his eyebrows.
"Nothing, of course. But hope springs eternal in the human spleen.