There are kisses and kisses. Some are given in sport and some in passion. There are formal kisses of greeting and departure, and there are perfunctory pecks of accustomed affection. Once in a great while lips meet and two spirits merge for a time and the universe is right and complete and the planets wheel in their proper places. Once in a while the lonely, broken spirit of man is healed and made whole. For a while his quest is over and his questions are answered.
One might almost define intelligence as the level at which an aware organism demands, ‘What’s in it for me?
If you turn out to be useful as well as ornamental, you can stay forever.
In the course of nearly a century of gusty living he had been broke many times, had several times been wealthier than he now was; he regarded both conditions as he did shifts in the weather, and never counted his change.
The long knives made short work.
Dorcas, for the last twenty or thirty years I’ve been a worthless, useless, no-good parasite.” She nodded and yawned again. “Everybody knows that.” “Never mind the flattery. There comes a time in every man’s life when he has to stop being sensible – a time to stand up and be counted – strike a blow for liberty – smite the wicked.
Unexpected discorporation was always rare on Mars; Martian taste in such matters called for life to be a rounded whole, with physical death taking place at the appropriate and selected instant. This artist, however, had become so preoccupied with his work that he had forgotten to come in out of the cold; by the time his absence was noticed his body was hardly fit to eat. He himself had not noticed his own discorporation and had gone right on composing his sequence.
It doesn’t make sense. Or, rather, it makes just one kind of sense. Hanky-panky. Ben is as used to hanky-panky as a bride is to kisses. He didn’t get to be one of the best winchells in the business through playing his cards face up.
I wish we had somebody here who never would be missed. Regrettably we are all friends.
Fact was, little Carmen was so ornamental that you just never thought about her being useful.
Marrying Gretchen is a good idea, darling; I would enjoy bringing her up. Teaching her to shoot, helping her with her first baby, coaching her in how to handle a knife, working out with her in martial arts, all the homey domestic skills a girl needs in this modern world.
I think you were telling the truth, Jill. But a dream is a true experience of a sort and so is a hypnotic delusion.
You evaded my question.” “Then perhaps you had better assume that I intended to evade it.
Simply because an evil was inescapable was no reason to term it a ’good.
She hesitated slightly. “I’ve seen what was called telekinesis with dice – but I’m no mathematician and I could not testify that what I saw was telekinesis.” “Hell’s bells, you wouldn’t testify that the sun had risen if the day was cloudy.
Everything and anything about a culture can be inferred from the shape of its language – and.
I often calculate odds on horse races; the civil service computermen frequently program such requests. But the results are so at variance with expectations that I have concluded either that the data is too meager, or the horses or riders are not honest. Possibly all three.
This school is based on the idea that a man who can think correctly will automatically behave morally – or.
Strictly speaking, the Patrol is not a military organization at all.” “Sir?” “I know, I know – you are trained to use weapons, you are under orders, you wear a uniform. But your purpose is not to fight, but to prevent fighting, by every possible means. The Patrol is not a fighting organization; it is the repository of weapons too dangerous to entrust to military men.
Having been born to wealth, stealing doesn’t fret me as much as it does him.