The octopus's secret wish

Growing and learning and obeying the rules of their elders, or fighting against them, are not easy things to do.

No matter how nearly perfect an Almost Perfect State may be, it is not nearly enough perfect unless the individuals who compose it can, somewhere between death and birth, have a perfectly corking time for a few years.

Infancy is not what it is cracked up to be.

we are after a system that scarcely knows it is a system; the great thing is to have the largest number of individuals as happy as may be, for a little while at least, some time before they die.

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.

Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles.