New worlds are always hard on old ideas. - Jack McDevitt

Like his father, he believed the universe a clockwork mechanism; and if there was a clockmaker, he’d hidden himself too well and had therefore no justifiable complaint with unbelievers.

If you're paying attention to your wardrobe, Rudy believed, your mind isn’t sufficiently occupied.

The uplifters are forever running around telling blockheads they would do better if they would believe in themselves. But they already do. That is why they are blockheads.