Those who are larger than life live by their own rules, Hilda thought. One looks up in wonder and tries to stay out from under their feet.
Fate does not invite ugly boring people to save the world; and if you do try to save the world (without being beautiful, strong, clever, or wise), you will soon die pointlessly and how much adventure is there in that?
Because we just won. We won the money. And more importantly, we won the argument. Open source will have a seat at the table from now on. It will be part of humanity’s expansion into space. We won everything we wanted, T. J. *You *won everything.
The paparazzi are driving me crazy. I’m tired of this whole celebrity aura thing.
He’s spending a year dead for tax reasons.
The original counts were Voradar Tau’s tax collectors. With that much money floating past my illiterate ancestors, they tended to grow sticky fingers. The Auditors policed the Counts for the Emperor.
“I don’t know if you’ve seen what happens when mercenaries are forced to choose between large sums of money and following orders, but I assure you, it’s seldom pretty.”
After yesterday’s performance, I personally would have no compunction at disposing of you all by the swiftest means, just to improve the military tone of this ship.
You didn’t kill me, so my day is looking up.
I’ve already killed one fat boy. I bet you’re a liar, but I’m not. I’m good at killing fat boys. I like killing fat boys.
Yet it was not shortness of breath or exhaustion at the slightest effort that had brought him back to Anderson’s Fitness Center. He had often been fat before, and he rather relished the sensation of bulk, the impression he made as crowds parted for him. He pitied those who could only be slightly fat-- short people, who were not able to bear the weight. At well over two meters, Barth could get gloriously fat, stunningly fat. He owned thirty wardrobes and took delight in changing from one to another as his belly and buttocks and thighs grew. At times he felt that if he grew large enough, he could take over the world, be the world. At the dinner table he was a conqueror to rival Genghis Khan.
Mark was no medtech, but he had a clear cold feeling that it would be a very bad idea to try to move this man. Even with his new girth he was heavily outweighed by the Count.
Inside every fat man there is a thin man signalling wildly to get out and eat everything in sight. That’s why the man is fat in the first place.
"You don’t think I’d hang people from the ceiling, bloat them with chemicals, harvest their blistered hides, and then leave them miserable, do you?
“Sorry. Our bad. We’ll get your sainthood application processed right away.”
Bless me Father, I ate a lizard.
“I swallowed a bug.”
Thomas died because of something he ate.
For whatever good that’ll do us finding a cure.
You can’t make a dead person sick.
Once opposites have cancelled, says Rucker, what remains should be benign, bizarre, and bemusing.