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'Thank you, Hester,' Janet said, as she leaned back against the cushion placed behind her. Not that it was necessary to thank a robot, but she had a theory that if you did not practise politeness with robots you soon forgot it with other people.

To sleep in peace, and resume a nightmare when one wakes, is a highly undesirable reversal of the natural order.

"I see death as the worm's opportunity. It is defeat. You can dress it as you like, with drama, or glory, or pomposity, and perhaps deceive yourself for the critical moment - but, nevertheless, the same worm comes - it is defeat..."

'A species continues to exist by outbreeding the checks that its natural enemies impose on it. That is what gives the illusion of "the balance of nature" belief. Once the natural enemies cease to be a threat its fecundity becomes terrifying. Look what has happened in a generation or two to our own population, largely because a few diseases have been overcome. Find a way of conquering the natural enemies, and the only limiting factor is the food supply.'

It's all pretty simple if you don't give a damn who gets hurt in the rush.

'The time has now come for us to cease to behave like a lot of irresponsible children letting off fireworks in a crowded hall.'

"Dying," observed the doctor, "is such a very ordinary thing to do."

"Was she a bit mad?"

"Mad? Oh, no - unless you would call a failure to grow up a kind of madness - in which case there would be very few sane people."

One man's trash is another's souvenir.

You can half-expect things. Try to face them in advance, case-harden your mind, you think - but when they come, it's always different.

I'd begun to grasp the principle that the less anybody knows, the less any squealer can give away. And it was easy to see that in a place where questioning was liable to assume the aspect of a blood-sport, the less one did know about other people's business, the better.

Primitive man would see every one of us as a magician.