“He’s not a big man, he’s not a small man, he’s what you might call a handy man.”

“A small man always has one weapon he can use against a great big man: he can "talk" about him.”

“The case is a good example of what Van Vogt came to call "the violent man" or the "Right Man." He is a man driven by a manic need for self-esteem — to feel that he is a "somebody." He is obsessed by the question of "losing face," so will never, under any circumstances, admit that he might be in the wrong.”

“He's a man… and that's no small thing to be.”

“Man lives in a world of Meaning. What he sees and hears means what he will or might handle.”

“No man but feels more of a man in the world if he have a bit of ground that he can call his own. However small it is on the surface, it is four thousand miles deep; and that is a very handsome property.”

“Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself.”

“When a man is in doubt what to do, he goes wherever he happens to be first called.”

“A MAN FEARED

A man feared that he might find an assassin;
Another that he might find a victim.
One was more wise than the other.”

“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”