Hope — cruelest of the evils that escaped Pandora’s box — smiled on him gently all that summer. - Mary Doria Russell

The mission, he thought, probably failed because of a series of logical, reasonable, carefully considered decisions, each of which seemed like a good idea at the time. Like most colossal disasters.

"Bein' born is craps," he decided. He glanced at Morg and let loose that sly, lopsided smile of his. "How we live is poker."

"In the beginning," Scripture taught, "there was the Word," and Danny would come to believe that the two great gifts his God had given to the species He loved were time, which divides experience, and language, which binds the past to the future.