Every law that was ever written opened up a new way to graft. - Robert A. Heinlein

File off the serial numbers, change the body lines a bit, give it a new paint job, switch it over the state line, and it’s yours!—that’s the secret of literary success. Editors always claim to be looking for new stories but they don’t buy them; they buy “mixture as before.” Because the cash customers want to be entertained, not amazed, not instructed, not frightened.

It seemed to John that most of the older people in the world spent much of their time not listening.

Like every living thing its prime characteristic is a blind, unreasoned instinct to survive.