John Varley

The parking lot was full of cars belonging to relatives, and one news truck from a local television station.

“Easy, Bill,” Tom said, and guided me gently away from the camera crew. “You don’t want to wind up on the six o’clock news. Not that way.”

“I hope there’s a hell, Tom. And when those guys get there, I hope the devil’s waiting to shove a camera in their faces and ask them what they feel like.”

We’ve become a race of engineers. What we never seem to understand is that after it’s time to railroad, there’s time to build a beautiful railroad. The state of the art has advanced enough; we can afford to pay a small penalty in efficiency.

It was not pleasant to admit what one is willing to do to go on living.

I found that it is much more pleasurable to read adventures than to live them.