“Thus, in moments of catastrophe, when hard decisions needed to be made quickly, all AIs included in their calculations a human death toll governed by a factor called ‘pigheadedness’.”

“If I could time travel into the future, my first port of call would be the point where medical technology is at its best because, like most people on this planet, I have this aversion to dying.”

“Gemmell's name guarantees a satisfying story and a thumping good read. I recommend all his heroic creations - 'Druss the axeman,' 'the Jerusalem man,' among others - but my favourite has to be 'Waylander': Clint Eastwood with a crossbow and the same 'Make my day, punk' attitude.”

“And, when the revolutionary cries that he is fighting for ‘freedom’, be sure to go running away from him just as fast as you can, for you can be damned certain he’s fighting for the freedom to tell you what to do.”

“It is very difficult to motivate people to revolution when they are extremely comfortable and well off.”

“The greatest admission a human can make is that perhaps he does not have the intelligence, the vision, the grasp to fully understand the universe, and that perhaps no human ever will. To put it all down to some omnipotent deity is a cop-out. Factor in fairy tales of an afterlife and it becomes a comforting cop-out.”

“Harl whirled round, all his attention ... on Skulker. "What is that on your carapace?""What?" Skulker tried to peer back... A tinny voice issued from somewhere... It took Skulker a moment to recognize it as that of the human male he earlier encountered. "It's CTD gecko mine - yield of about five kilotones." Skulker's shriek terminated in a blast that peeled back four square kilometers of jungle canopy and sunk a crater down to the bedrock.”

“Thus, in moments of catastrophe, when hard decisions needed to be made quickly, all AIs included in their calculations a human death toll governed by a factor called ‘pigheadedness’.”

“Try to think like a human,’ said Gant, lolling in one of the club chairs.‘Why should I restrict myself so severely?”

“Coloron often pondered how a race, in which the stupid seemed more inclined to breed, had managed to come this far, and why human intelligence persisted—a discussion point in the nature vs nurture debate which had not died in half a millennium.”

“It seemed that, after contact with a few human generations, sand hogs would begin to understand human speech. The irony was that after coming to understand their riders fully, the beasts often ended up abandoning them and heading off into the wilderness.”