“We change the script a little,” Madame Ping said, “to allow for cultural differences. But the story never changes. There are many people and many tribes, but only so many stories.”

“This may sound rather odd,” Hackworth said gently, “but if you and I could both remember all of our dreams—which we can't, of course—and if we compared notes long enough, we would probably find that we had shared a few over the years.”

” “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.”

in his absence, Gwendolyn had been able to consummate all of the long-term furniture-buying strategies she had spent so much time plotting during the early years of their marriage. Wives and widows of secret agents in Protocol Enforcement could rely on being well cared for, and Gwen had not allowed his salary to sit around collecting dust.

They were almost the only people on the street, certainly the only ones moving purposefully, and so, as they ran, the messages on the billboards pursued them like starving wolves, making sure they understood that if they used certain ractives or took certain drugs, they could rely on being able to have sex with certain unrealistically perfect young

It is remarkable, love,” he said, looking at Nell for the first time, “how much money you can make shovelling back the tide. In the end you need to get out while the getting is good. Not very honourable, I suppose, but then, there is no honour among consultants.”

people are naturally censorious and love nothing better than to criticise others' shortcomings. And so it was that they seized on hypocrisy and elevated it from a ubiquitous peccadillo into the monarch of all vices. For, you see, even if there is no right and wrong, you can find grounds to criticise another person by contrasting what he has

The media net was designed from the ground up to provide privacy and security, so that people could use it to transfer money. That's one reason the nation-states collapsed—as soon as the media grid was up and running, financial transactions could no longer be monitored by governments, and the tax collection systems got fubared. So if the old IRS,

The difference lay in personality, not in native intelligence. It was too late for Hackworth to change his personality, but it wasn't too late for Fiona.