Anyone who tries to predict the future is inevitably a fool. Present company included. A prophet without a sense of humor is just stupid. - David Brin

By one way of reckoning, we transformed several hundred cubic kilometers of fossil fuels into two cubic kilometers of human beings.

Where it is strongest, it must still contend ceaselessly with macho, paranoiac, homogenizing, and other traditional forces that continue battling over the minds and actions of women and men – forces that may indeed be far more “natural” to us human animals, who are so innately egotistical and afraid. Add to this a plague of self-righteousness, in which both individuals and political factions seem more interested in the sweet mantras of their slogans than in finding pragmatic solutions to modern problems, and you have a formula for troubled times ahead.

She had called in the debt that parents owe a child for bringing her, unasked, into a strange world. One should never make an offer without knowing full well what will happen if it is accepted.