Jack Mcdevitt

He was usually easygoing, one of those guys with little respect for authority because of a conviction that people in charge tend to do stupid things.

Katie commented that Americans had lost the ability to enjoy themselves.

“We watch television,” Dave said.

MacAllister commented recently that Plato was right, that democracy is mob rule, that the voters can be counted on consistently to find the candidate with the fewest scruples and put him in office.

“It’s all PR,” said Hutchins. “If we ever produced a person who was unrelentingly honest, everybody would want him dead.”

Technological civilizations don’t last long. You're all right until you get a printing press. Then a race starts between technology and common sense. And maybe technology always wins.

If you're paying attention to your wardrobe, Rudy believed, your mind isn’t sufficiently occupied.

“Technology is dangerous.”

“How do you mean?”

“It can provide horrendous weapons to idiots.”

“We are not a debating club,” Franklin said. “Our goal is to get at the truth, where that is possible.”

The kids were both adolescents, at that happy stage where they could simultaneously make him confident about the future while they were sabotaging the present.

If you want creative and successful children, resign yourself to jousting with rebels.

At night the sea is very loud,

And voices ride the tide.

At another time, in another place,

Beneath the silent moon,

We laughed together.

And because she so desperately wanted it to be true, she knew she could not manage an objective judgment.