Tuf Voyaging

by George R.R. Martin

The stars come out, one by one, but the only star that matters burns night and day, day and night. It is always with me, the brightest thing in the sky but for the sun. It is the plague star.

“If,” said Haviland Tuf. “A most difficult word. So short, and so often fraught with disappointment and frustration.”

“Such are the vicissitudes of life,” Tuf said, “that each of us must sometimes accept that which he does not like.”

I have found that it is almost always a mistake to assume that any human being is ever satisfied.”

A culture with cats is richer and more humane than one deprived of their unique companionship.”

The sad truth of history has always been that the unreasoning masses follow the powerful, and not the wise.”