It’s a national failing to think of politics as something that goes on in Parliament. It isn’t; it’s something that goes on inside us. - Brian Aldiss

To read is to strike a blow for culture

"So what's this "sad" business mean, anyway? I mean, how often do you feel like doing it?'
'Sad? Oh, sadness is just happiness in reverse. We humans have to put up with it. Just being human is an awful burden to bear.'
'You keep on doing it? Is that why you feel compelled to collect all these old secondhand sunsets?"

There have been mechanicals on the market with mini-computers for brains — plastic things without life, super-toys — but we have at last found a way to link computer circuitry with synthetic flesh.