The computer may be incompetent in itself--that is, unable to do the work for which it was designed. This kind of incompetence can never be eliminated, because the Peter Principle applies in the plants where computers are designed and manufactured.

Before publishers' blurbs were invented, authors had to make their reputations by writing.

The cruelty intrinsic to the workhouse system was excused by the need to discourage idleness, much as the malice intrinsic to the mental hospital system has been excused by the need to provide treatment.

You have to figure that there is something seriously wrong with somebody who wants to enter a profession that deals with whether people are screwing enough. Dealing with spirits, spooks, and demons almost seemed normal.

Theirs was the eternal youth of an alternating self, a youth with the constant although unfulfilled promise of growing up

_all that goes under the name of science is not necessarily scientific, and that all that goes under the name of health-care will not necessarily care for your health.