But now the shots began—not many, but one shot is a fusillade if there have been no shots before. - James Blish

A common thief with a gun in his hand isn’t half as dangerous as an engineer with a stick of dynamite.

You’ll remember I told you I was interested in the history of science. That involves trying to understand why there wasn’t any science for so long, and why it went into eclipse almost every time it was rediscovered. I think I know why now. I think the human mind goes through a sort of cycle of fear. It can only take so much accumulated knowledge, and then it panics, and starts inventing reasons to throw everything over and go back to a Dark Age…every time with a new, invented mystical reason.

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.