Quotes from Douglas E. Richards

First, people are born to worry. That's how we made it to the top of the food chain. Constant anxiety is the curse that comes with consciousness, with sentience. We're the only species smart enough to fear not only actual, present threats, but also a myriad of imagined threats. Worse, we're the only species burdened with the knowledge of our own mortality. And this makes us the most neurotic animal on Earth.

have to say, I was a little pissed off that you escaped from the Codon." Desh kept his face passive and didn't respond. "You know you cost

So maybe he had known she was coming.

most deeply held beliefs of early adulthood have changed over the years, through repeated exposure to new and different experiences, and to new ways of thought.

Being extra cautious is just part of the covert operative instruction manual." "Good," said Allie. "Caution is just the quality I'm looking for in the man handling my personal security." The commander laughed. "I'm even willing to sleep in the same bed with you for added protection. Now that's going the extra mile.

the document now seemed to hover in front of him in perfect 3D clarity.

cling to these cherished beliefs with superhuman tenacity. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence that we're wrong.

Relativity works in the realm of the large. It deals with gravity and mass and speed. Quantum mechanics deals with the very small. Elementary particles. Like electrons. Both paint a picture of a universe that seems ridiculous. Crazier than something out of a fantasy novel." "For instance?" prompted Elovic. "Relativity shows that as an object speeds up, time itself passes more and more slowly for it. At the speed of light, time stops altogether.

Richard Kemp, commander of British forces in Afghanistan, had written in a formal report that, "The Taliban's use of women to shield gunmen as they engage NATO forces is now so normal it is deemed barely worthy of comment.

Shared belief in an absurdity is a much better indicator of loyalty than shared belief in the truth. And it's a much better way to create group cohesion. If a leader asks you to believe that the sky is blue, and you do, what does that prove? The truth is easy. But if he requires his followers to believe the sky is green, they quickly distance themselves from non-believers and become firmly united in a shared delusion.

Allie's job required very deep, very sustained thinking. And cell phones were the ultimate distraction, carefully designed and evolved to become as addictive as possible.

Just as creation can be viewed as a process of subtraction from the infinite rather than as an event in which something pops out of nothing, your personal consciousness can be viewed as a brain-filtered remnant of infinite consciousness rather than as a chemical creation of the brain.

God can do anything, right? He's all powerful. So he could have created a species of gods. He could have filled the universe with his equals. But instead, he created an inferior species to worship him. Aronson obviously prefers to do the same.

He was really beginning to like working with scientists. They were logical and quick on the uptake.

Knowledge is the food of the soul." —Plato

If I wasn't my own harshest critic, I might start feeling important about now." Nick smiled. "Then I'm glad I didn't tell you we plan to give you tech that changes water into wine," he said with a twinkle in his eye.

I'm guessing if we had just waited an hour or so we would have been there when Dad first broke in.

You know the old adage: nine women can't make a baby in a month.

Extraordinary breakthroughs require extraordinary perseverance.

There have been thousands of different religions through time. And the followers of each of these religions believe that their founders received the divine answer, and that the religious mythology of all other religions is delusional. Almost everyone agrees that all the other religions were invented by man, just not the particular one into which they were born.

Spilling blood to protect the homeland was one thing. But spilling blood, only to then vacate hard-won gains on a whim and leave a vacuum that ended up making the problem far worse, was another.

The Chinese people were, by all accounts, a wonderful group—generous and peace-loving

When I have White, I win because I am white. When I have Black, I win because I am Bogolyubov.

A famous poem I had quoted in a novel came to mind: "And how can a man die better, Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods?" How, indeed?