Jesteśmy społecznością, która kocha książki

- Mężczyźni zawsze potrzebują dużo czasu, by cokolwiek powiedzieć - stwierdziła. - Nie tylko ty, wszyscy mężczyźni.
- To dlatego, że zastanawiamy się, nim cokolwiek powiemy.

How can anyone doubt the existence of God when evidence of His sense of humour surrounds us on all sides?

...as a wise man once said, the difference between luck and a wheelbarrow is, luck doesn't work if you push it.

I swear, there's nothing in this world as satisfying as the sound of a beautifully made machine working perfectly.

[...] because your pay is a tenth of a per cent of all the coins struck in the Mint. Now, since it’s exactly as much time and work to strike a gold coin as a silver or a bronze one, the Mint strikes lots and lots of gold, silver when it absolutely has to and bronze never.

My belief is, either you understand things or you understand people. Nobody can do both. Frankly, I’m happier with things. I understand stuff like tensile strength, shearing force, ductility, work hardening, stress, fatigue. I know the same sort of things happen with people, but the rules are subtly different. And nobody’s ever paid for my time to get to know about people.

According to the books (there’s an extensive literature on the subject) there are fifteen ways to defend a walled city. You can try one of them, and if that doesn’t work—.

Authority, it never ceases to amaze me how much people believe in it and trust it.

Still, and even so; if it’s a choice between lions and wolves and jackals and foxes, give me lions any day. You can’t ever justify what they do, but they’ve got style.

I took the overland route from Traiecta to Cirte, across one of my bridges (a rush job I did fifteen years ago, only meant to last a month, still there and still the only way across the Lusen unless you go twenty-six miles out of your way to Pons Jovianis) then down through the pass onto the coastal plain.

The trouble with now is, it’s over in a heartbeat, and then you’ve got to think of something else.