Silence fell. The clock on my mantel ticked aloud and the wind outside flowed past like a river. - Poul Anderson

Be calm. A man can do but little. Enough if that little be right.

What I’m trying to make you know, not in your forebrain but in your marrow, is that reality never conforms very well to the textbooks, and sometimes it doesn’t conform at all.

One can surrender one’s rational will to beliefs or habits as easily as to individuals, for essentially the same reasons, and with essentially the same results. Ideas have a mystery and power of their own.