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Prudence, and experience, suggested she expect the worst.
Jack McDevitt -
The earliest religious feeling MacAllister could recall was being annoyed at Adam, because it was his fault that girls subsequently had to wear clothes.
Jack McDevitt
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'I can’t imagine,' said Dupre, 'a better way to unnerve people than to tell them there’s no cause for alarm.'
Jack McDevitt -
(He remarked) that anyone who truly wished to develop tolerance toward other human beings should start by casting aside any and all religious affiliation. When challenged by one of the other guests, he had asked innocently whether anyone could name a single person put to death or driven from his home by an atheist over theological matters.
Jack McDevitt -
Fiction is unlike reality because it has an end, a conclusion, which allows the characters to stroll happily, or perhaps simply more wisely, out through the climax into the epilogue. But life is a tapestry. It has no satisfactory end. There are simply periods of acceleration and delay, victory and frustration, seasoned with periodic jolts of reality.
Jack McDevitt -
We’re talking about something we all want very much to find. And that automatically makes Ed’s conclusions suspect.
Jack McDevitt -
'Sometimes,' he said, 'I think life is just one long series of blown opportunities.'
Jack McDevitt -
The only people he knew of who would have leveled material advantage so that no one had any were of course those who had none to start with.
Jack McDevitt
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Show me what a people admire, and I will tell you everything about them that matters.
Jack McDevitt -
One could not always put safety up front as the prime goal. Do that, and who would ever achieve anything of note?
Jack McDevitt -
Well, kids are never much on history. Nor for that matter was anybody else. It had been MacAllister’s experience that most people think anything that happened before they were born didn’t count for a whole lot.
Jack McDevitt -
He was usually easygoing, one of those guys with little respect for authority because of a conviction that people in charge tend to do stupid things.
Jack McDevitt -
(He was) tall and lean, an aristocrat by inclination, born into money and influence and never recovered.
Jack McDevitt -
The cultures we can look at had already grasped the essential unity of nature. No board of gods can survive that knowledge.
Jack McDevitt
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The Reverend Pullman sat on the opposite side of the bench, wearing clerical garb and one of those unctuous smiles that proclaims a monopoly on truth.
Jack McDevitt -
Cities have a social utility, if only as places to get away from.
Jack McDevitt -
The queen of virtues is the recognition of one’s own flaws.
Jack McDevitt -
He was a decent enough guy, but he was always at his worst when he was trying to be sincere.
Jack McDevitt