Think of it as evolution in action. - Larry Niven

Time is a one-way street with no parking spaces. You just have to keep going.

Sometimes there’s no point in giving up.

Perhaps the lines of nationalism and factionalism and every other goddamn “ism” in the world had reduced the chances for this weary planet. Or not. Nuclear devices had existed for over a century, and only four of them had ever been used in anger. This could be interpreted as proof of divine intervention, good luck, a sign that the human race was growing up, or ominous portent, depending upon one’s standing in the “half-empty, half-full” school of cocktail-party philosophy.