“It is easy to forget that in the main we die only seven times more slowly than our dogs.”

“Never forget I am not this silver body, Mahrai. I am not an animal brain, I am not even some attempt to produce an AI through software running on a computer. I am a Culture Mind. We are close to gods, and on the far side. We are quicker; we live faster and more completely than you do, with so many more senses, such a greater store of memories and at such a fine level of detail. We die more slowly, and we die more completely, too.”

“It is especially easy in our time to forget others, largely because of the conditions in modern society.”

“When most of us talk to our dogs, we tend to forget that they're not people.”

“Our stories are so fundamental to us that it’s easy to forget that we choose them.”

“Nothing prints more lively in our minds than something we wish to forget.”

“But the words are easy and soothing, promising tomorrow will be more hopeful than this awful piece o time we call today.”

“Only thoughts that are randomly born die. The other thoughts we carry with us without knowing them. They have abandoned themselves to forgetfulness so that they can be with us all the time.”

“one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or a rat in a trap”

“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.”