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Over unforced love, the gods themselves had no might.

It sounds rather silly, doesn’t it? One little man thinking he can change history all by his lonesome. A lot of trouble has been caused by that delusion.

Better a life like a falling star, bright across the dark, than a deathlessness which can see naught above or beyond itself.

I am a peaceful man, captain. I rely more on my cerebral cortex than my guns.

For a space he faltered, when Goltan fell with a spear through him. “Now I am one friend poorer,” he said, “and that is a wealth not gained back.”

“I think you look on death as your friend,” she murmured. “That is a strange friend for a young man to have.”

“The only faithful friend in this world,” he said. “Death is always sure to be at your side.”

Do you think maybe I want power for myself? That’s for fools who want to command other fools.

I was trying to avoid the cliché all too common in science fiction, even today, of a whole population feeling itself oppressed and waiting only for a leader to rise in a body against its overlords. No government for which that was actually the case could last a minute. There must always be a majority who have some stake in things as they are, whether that stake consist of wealth and power or simply of law, order, and predictability. Moreover, most people cannot really imagine any system working which is very different from the one they are used to. Hence they find rationalizations for it. Even slaves often do this.

Chanthavar said that the Egyptian pyramids, part of the Sphinx, traces of buried cities, a couple of ruined dams in America and Russia, some hydrogen-bomb craters, were still around, otherwise nothing earlier than the Thirty-fifth century. Time went on, relentlessly, and one by one the proud works of man were lost.

Hurry and hurry, autumn leaves hurrying on the rainy wind, snow hurrying out of the sky, life hurrying to death, gods hurrying to oblivion.

A world of life and mystery, a world of splendor and striving and wistful beauty. Yes, it was good to live, and even if he was now to join the sun in an endless night, he was glad of what he had been given.

“So this,” he said, “is the excitement and glory of war! I’ll never believe a ballad singer again.”