He was getting to be a little old for combat or for princesses, but what was worse, he had become a lot more cynical without having become even sligh… - James Blish

He had been greatly talented once, but the loss of gifted experimenters to administrative posts was the curse of all research organizations.

It is written:
That given any one of a thousand million possible paths, life will take them all;
That worlds which will support life will give birth to it;
That worlds which cannot support intelligent life will be colonized;
And that where both can take place, both will take place.
It is written that this is what the vast, unknowing interstellar stage is for: To be given consciousness and purpose while its gift of existence lasts.
It is written:
That this is a random process;
That in the end all will be darkness and silence again;
But that while it lasts, life spreads through it, to make it aware of its own vastness and beauty, which otherwise it can never have known.
This is a gift; but the Giver is unknown.
That too is written.

All but a small percentage of Americans live out of their lives without ever coming closer to murder than the daily tabloid can bring them, though magazine fiction and video confer spurious intimacy with the subject.