I repeat Sturgeon's Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who use… - Theodore Sturgeon

Ninety percent of everything is crap.

So it was that Lone came to know himself; and like the handful of people who have done so before him he found, at this pinnacle, the rugged foot of a mountain.

Reality isn’t the most pleasant of atmospheres, Lieutenant. But we like to think we’re engineered for it. It’s a pretty fine piece of engineering, the kind an engineer can respect. Drag in an obsession and reality can’t tolerate it. Something has to give; if reality goes, your fine piece of engineering is left with nothing to operate on. Nothing it was designed to operate on. So it operates badly. So kick the obsession out; start functioning the way you were designed to function.

Movement, growth, change, catabolism. Could music exist without passage, without progression, or poetry; could you speak a word and call it a rhyme without speaking more words? Could life exist … why, passage is very nearly a definition for life! A living thing changes by the moment and by each portion of each part of a moment; even when it sickens, even when it decays, it changes, and when it stops changing, it’s —