All magic means is a line between knowledge and ignorance," Ortega responded. "A magician is someone who can do something you don't know how to do. A… - Jack L. Chalker

Even the people were bred without imaginations. The imaginative ones were fixed—or gotten rid of. Too dangerous to have a thinker unless he thought the government’s way.

Throughout the history of men there's always been some kind of drug, and the people stuck on it. The people who push the stuff are on a different kind of drug, one so powerful that they are not aware of its own, ravaging, animalistic effect on them."
"What's that?"
"Power and greed," he told her. "The ugliest—no, the second ugliest ravager of people ever known."
"What's the ugliest then?" she asked him.
"Fear," he replied seriously. "It destroys, rots, and touches everyone around.

Do you drink ale, stranger?" the aged centaur asked Brazil.
"I've been known to," Brazil replied. "What do you make it out of?"
"Grains, water, and yeast!" said Yomax, surprised at the question. "What else would you make ale out of?"
"I don't know," Brazil admitted, "but I'm awfully glad you don't either.