For når jeg ga meg til å tenke rolig og vurdere saken, kunne jeg konstatere at det som var i veien med kniven i giljotinen var at den aldri slo klikk, absolutt aldri. Pasientens død var kort og godt blitt avgjort en gang for alle. Det var en sak som unne henlegges, en plan som var fast utarbeidet, en avtale som var inngått og som det ikke kunne bli snakk om å få omgjort. Dersom det merkelige skulle hende at noe klikket, var det bare å begynne på nytt. Den kjedelige følge av dette var at det ble helt nødvendig for den dømte å ønske at dødsmaskinen virket som den skulle.

Forgetting used to be a failing, a waste, a sign of senility. Now it takes effort. It may be as important as remembering.

Most of the biosphere cannot see the infosphere; it is invisible, a parallel universe humming with ghostly inhabitants.

The GPS unit became almost equally obstreperous, though, over Richard’s unauthorized route change, until they finally passed over some invisible cybernetic watershed between two possible ways of getting to their destination, and it changed its fickle little mind and began calmly telling him which way to proceed as if this had been its idea all along.

During the last three months of Devin's tenure, he had been almost disturbingly productive (...). This had led to a new piece of jargon: Canon Lag, in which the employees responsible for cross-checking Devin's work and incorporating it into the Canon had been unable to keep pace with his output.

If there was such a thing as a mind’s eye, then his mind’s mouth had started talking.

[L]overs repent of the kindnesses which they have shown when their passion ceases, but to the non-lovers who are free and not under any compulsion, no time of repentance ever comes.

[T]o be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous.

• Hva slags forhold har du til døden, da, Riktor. Kan du si litt om det?

• Jeg er smertelig klar over den, sa jeg, og jeg ser at det hender med andre. Men jeg håper det ikke hender med meg.

Another circumstance, too, worried me in those days: that there was no one like me and I was unlike anyone else. "I am alone and they are EVERYONE," I thought--and pondered.

From that it is evident that I was still a youngster.

There is one case, one only, when man may consciously, purposely, desire what is injurious to himself, what is stupid, very stupid--simply in order to have the right to desire for himself even what is very stupid and not to be bound by an obligation to desire only what is sensible.