A trooper fights for honor ... or from loyalty. Or for loot sometimes. — Gene Wolfe

"Of the nature of Death and the Dead we may enumerate twelve kinds. First there are those who become new gods, for whom new universes are born. Second those who praise. Third those who fight as soldiers in the unending war with evil. Fourth those who amuse themselves among flowers and sweet springs with sports. Fifth those who dwell in gardens of bliss, or are tortured. Sixth those who continue as in life. Seventh those who turn the wheel of the universe. Eighth those who find in their graves their mothers wombs and in one life circle forever. Ninth ghosts. Tenth those born again as men in their grandsons time. Eleventh those who return as beasts or trees. And last those who sleep."

"The slight criticism of evolution I offer should not be taken as evidence that I do not believe in evolution; I do. Lets not blame God for everything. I also believe in Lamarckism, as it was put forward by Lamarck. (The Lamarckism presented in standard textbooks is actually Lysenkoism, a straw man set up by the opponents of Lamarckism, palpably false and easily disproved.) There is no paradox in that: Lamarckism and Darwinism are not mutually exclusive, except politically."

"I have called these animals destriers, borrowing an old word for war-horses. Ive given them clawed feet instead of hoofs because I think the genetic engineers will give them claws too. The horses hoofs seem to be an evolutionary mistake. To speak in Lamarckian terms, the horse has lengthened its legs by standing on its toes until it has ended up standing on one toenail. [...] Cheetahs, wolves, and greyhounds all have nonretractile claws that serve them as their spikes serve runners and baseball players. Racehorses could not run as fast as they do if they did not wear aluminum or magnesium shoes."

"This, then, is the new illiteracy, the illiteracy of those who can read but dont. [...] This new illiteracy is more pernicious than the old, because unlike the old illiteracy it does not debar its victims from power and influence, although like the old illiteracy it disqualifies them for it. Those long-dead men and women who learned to read so that they might read the Bible and John Bunyan would tell us that pride is the greatest of all sins, the father of sin. And the victims of the new illiteracy are proud of it. If you dont believe me, talk to them and see with what pride they trumpet their utter ignorance of any book you care to name."

"People who get eyeball arthritis see only what theyre supposed to see, like that TV screen."

"PARADOX: A statement that reduces the matter at hand to complete obscurity while clarifying it. [...] Paradoxes are sensitive and can be routed by sneering."