"But the tale or narrative set in the past may have its particular time-free value; and the candid reader will not misunderstand me, will not suppose that I intend any preposterous comparison, when I observe that Homer was farther removed in time from Troy than I am from the Napoleonic wars; yet he spoke to the Greeks for 2,000 years and more."

"Why do you have to explain, because they ask you to? Somethings need no explanation, they just are. When you block the flow of feeling you create problems for yourself. Zoomanity is confrontational. Listen and then allow."

"Who can know anybody?' said the bookshop owner. 'Every person is like thousands of books. New, reprinting, in stock, out of stock, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, rubbish. The lot. Different every day. One's lucky to be able to put his hand on the one that's wanted, let alone know it."

"Post-human intelligence will develop hypercomputers with the processing power to simulate living things - even entire worlds. Perhaps advanced beings could use hypercomputers to surpass the best 'special effects' in movies or computer games so vastly that they could simulate a world, fully, as complex as the one we perceive ourselves to be in."

"But then, anyone was capable of any manner of atrocities if they wanted something bad enough. People could justify anything to themselves if they wanted it bad enough. No one was immune to that."

"A few slave holders were undeniably cruel. Examples of slaves beaten to death were not common, neither were they unknown. The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well."