a gifted human player could always triumph over the game's AI, because software couldn't improvise. It could either react randomly, or in a limited number of predetermined ways, based on a finite number of preprogrammed conditions. This was an axiom in videogames, and would be until humans invented true artificial intelligence.

Ray seemed about to say something more when a boom shook the entire shuttle. I felt a rush of panic, thinking we'd just come under attack. Then I realized we'd just broken the sound barrier.

Oh-my-fucking-God!

Continue your quest by taking the test Yes, but what test? What test was I supposed to take? The Kobayashi Maru? The Pepsi Challenge? Could the clue have been any more vague?

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

One should accept things as they are and not try to lift them to impossible heights; only if you let them be will they reveal their true worth.

Impersonal things that dominate our time and imagination offer extravagant promises of control and knowledge. But they also squeeze all sense of mystery and wonder and reverence out of our lives.

How can I lead people into the quiet place beside the still waters if I am in perpetual motion? How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?

Wisdom is the art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves.

My feelings are important for many things. They are essential and valuable. They keep me aware of much that is true and real. But they tell me next to nothing about God or my relation to God. My security comes from who God is, not from how I feel. Discipleship is a decision to live by what I know about God, not by what I feel about him or myself or my neighbors.

But if we take the energies that make for aspiration and remove God from the picture, replacing him with our own crudely sketched self-portrait, we end up with ugly arrogance.

Our lives are lived well only when they are lived on the terms of their creation, with God loving and us being loved, with God making and us being made, with God revealing and us understanding, with God commanding and us responding.