Listen to me. You were born in Masham, capital city of Diracta – the Sirian home planet. Your father was a trader there at the time. You lived on Dir… - Wasp

What do you say to that?"
Giving a deep shrug, Taylor said, "That kind of political cynicism has been long out of date where I come from. I can't help it if mentally you're about ten millennia behind us.

Reasonableness is strength. Irrationality is weakness.

Nobody knew better than the Solarians that wars are not caused , declared or willingly fought by nations, planetary peoples or shape-groups, for these consist in the main of plain, ordinary folk who crave nothing more than to be left alone. The real culprits are power-drunken cliques of near-maniacs who by dint of one means or another have coerced the rest.