” “Which path do you intend to take, Nell?” said the Constable, sounding very interested. “Conformity or rebellion?” “Neither one. Both ways are simple-minded—they are only for people who cannot cope with contradiction and ambiguity.”

” “It's a wonderful thing to be clever, and you should never think otherwise, and you should never stop being that way. But what you learn, as you get older, is that there are a few billion other people in the world all trying to be clever at the same time, and whatever you do with your life will certainly be lost—swallowed up in the ocean—unless

“the difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous

“What's a Parsi?” Bud said to the banker, who merely lowered his eyelids one click and jutted his goatee at the piece of paper, which had picked up on his question and already branched into an explanation.

As Bud took it from the banker's hand, the blank page generated a nice animated color logo and music. The logo developed into a peacock. Beneath it, a video presentation commenced, hosted by a similar-looking gent—sort of Indian looking but sort of Arab too. “ 'The Parsis welcome you to Peacock Bank,' ” he said.

Mediaglyphics, mostly the cool animated ones, arranged themselves in a grid.

free food from the public matter compilers.

Of these, the two very finest were the Book of the Book and the Book of the Seed.

Unlike Rog, Mark had a job. He worked in the New Atlantis Clave cleaning windows of the Vickys' homes. He would come home late in the afternoon all tired and dirty and take a long shower in their bathroom. Sometimes he would have Nell come into the bathroom with him and help scrub his back, because he couldn't quite reach one spot in the middle.