"You believe, in one of your theories, that we're in control of the world. We aren't. But we have been, and we will be whenever we wish. It's a day y… - R. A. Lafferty

When we build excellences into human persons, Victor, we do not build up or upon. We build down, which is another way of saying that we refine. We cut down. We carve out. We sculpt.’
‘From what stones do we sculpt, Swing? Is it from the ‘Magnificent Blanks’ that you sometimes speak of?’
‘Yes, and there are such things, though you all smile at such statements from me as though I were concealing something behind a fanciful notion. There were even some Magnificent Blanks on this world once. The Cro-Magnons were such, and most of the people still carry some of their blood. The essence of the ‘Magnificents’ is that they should be large-brained and long-lived and vigorous; and that they should have a certain style, which is the same thing as grace, or as power-in-balance. And the essence of the ‘Blanks’ is a sort of hairy invisibility, a condition in which nobody will look at them twice, in which nobody will pluck or plunder them before their time.

Several bitter contemporary references to the pseudo-Emperor Eugenius had puzzled us. They asked how a man of such an appearance could attempt the pagan re-establishment. They asked it in horror, for there were certain horrifying aspects to this particular pagan reversion. It was not the old disinterested paganism; it was impassioned and very nearly diabolical in some of its manifestations.
The meaning of the references came clear with the examination of reproductions of coins and medallions of the pseudo-Emperor. Eugenius, who affected an old oriental style in hair and beard, had the face of Jesus Christ.

Lend ear while things incredible we bring about And Spacemen dead and deathless yet we sing about:— And some were weak and wan, and some were strong enough, And some got home, but damn it took them long enough!