And yet, Blaine thought, mankind showed an historic ability to avoid the extremes of doom as well as the extremes of bliss. Chaos was forever prophes… - Robert Sheckley

Dickerson watched the telephone like a man looking at a sleeping cobra. It could spring into virulent life at any moment, bite him with its hollow fangs, flood his system with the intellectual equivalent of poison, force him to leave the tried-and-true path of safe routine and jump into the dangerous and unpredictable unknown.

The trip to South Lake took another three hours. Blackwell stared out the window the whole time looking at nothing, which is to say, New Jersey.

I've never been able to understand that custom." "Not all customs have to have a reason.