3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years (The Time Traveler's Passport)

by John Scalzi

The theoretical process is almost never what actually happens. Theory is almost never practice.

the clients (who are not told the internal name for them is “clients”—they are informed that they are referred to as “temponauts”). It is psychologically important, when traveling through time, to have another human be the last and first thing you see.

We did it anyway, because humans can’t not stick their fingers into wall sockets (this is a personal observation, not an organizational conclusion).

You can’t be “careful” and attempt to interact only minimally; one can’t know which actions, however seemingly trivial, will be directly consequential, immediately or over time.

I know now, however, that whatever reality I am in, in the end, I carry only myself into it. Realities change, and I am the constant.