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.

the days when dangerousness was a function of mass and bulk.

We ignore the blackness of outer space and pay attention to the stars, especially if they seem to order themselves into constellations. “Common as the air” meant something worthless, but Hackworth knew that every breath of air that Fiona drew, lying in her little bed at night, just a silver glow in the moonlight, was used by her body to make skin a

Now nanotechnology had made nearly anything possible, and so the cultural role in deciding what should be done with it had become far more important than imagining what could be done with it. One of the insights of the Victorian Revival was that it was not necessarily a good thing for everyone to read a completely different newspaper in the morning

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 espouse

“To make money you have to work hard—to live your life in a certain way. The Atlantans all live that way, it's part of their culture. The Nipponese too. So the Nipponese and the Atlantans have as much money as all the other phyles put together.” “Why aren't you an Atlantan?” “Because I don't want to live that way. All the people in Dovetail like to

The drawer unlocked itself, and Cotton pulled it open to reveal a timeless assortment of office drawer miscellany, including several sheets of paper—some blank, some printed, some scrawled on, and one sheet that was blank except for the word RUNCIBLE printed at the top in Cotton's neat draughtsman's hand. Cotton pulled this one out and spoke to it:

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.”

Nell sat in the corner, opened the book, and started to read. She did not know all of the words, but she knew a lot of them, and when she got tired, the book would help her sound out the words or even read the whole story to her, or tell it to her with moving pictures just like a cine.