The Forge Of God

Life on earth is hard. Competition for the necessities of life is fierce. How ridiculous to believe that the law of harsh survival would not be true elsewhere, or that it would be negated by the progress of technology in an advanced civilization...

A Stellar’s jay hopped along behind him, watching closely for dropped crumbs. “It’s dark,” he told the bird. “Go to sleep. I've eaten already. Where were you? No food now.” The bird persisted, however; it knew humans were liars.

“We’d like to agree with you.” He glanced at Arthur.

“We can’t, however,” Arthur said.

“For the moment, then, amicable disagreement and open minds.”

Apocalypse could not be repealed by the democratic process.

“It’s not impossible,” Minelli said.

“No,” Edward admitted, “but it’s paranoid as hell, and that’s the last thing we need, more fear.”

Altruism is masked self-interest. Aggressive self-interest is a masked urge to self-destruction.

I sometimes think we deserve to die, we’re all so goddamned stupid.