I’d lived far too long, and with every day that passed the odds kept growing against my lasting much longer. Although they didn’t put it quite that w… - Roger Zelazny

“Nothing we did in those days has caused a change.”
“Because of what we did, things remained as they were, rather than getting worse,” I told him.

On the water, aboard the Proteus, the crowding, the activities, the tempo, of life in the cities, on the land, are muted, slowed—fictionalized—by the metaphysical distancing a few meters of water can provide. We alter the landscape with great facility, but the ocean has always seemed unchanged, and I suppose by extension we are infected with some feelings of timelessness whenever we set out upon her.

"Do you work for the government, any government?”
"I pay taxes, which means I work for the government, part of the time. Yes.