"There was exactly one power base available to sustain the old style of government," Nick grunted. "Organized crime." ​ - John Brunner

Like living creatures, automobiles expired when their environment became saturated with their own excreta. We ourselves are living creatures. We don't want the same to happen to us.

Bathed in his currents of liquid helium, self-contained, immobile, vastly well informed by every mechanical sense: Shalmaneser. Every now and again there passes through his circuits a pulse which carries the cybernetic equivalent of the phrase, “Christ, what an imagination I’ve got.“

Never marry a good church-going girl, Billy! They can always find moral justifications for anything they feel like doing, no matter how it hurts other people.