"But you have read Madame Bovary?' (I'd never heard of her books.) 'No."

"A weapon men use against women is the refusal to take them seriously."

"Lady Moon rose an' gazed o'er my busted'n'beautsome Valleys with silv'ry'n'sorryin' eyes, an' the dingos mourned for the died uns."

"What if the differences between social strata stem not from genomics or inherent xcellence or even dollars, but merely differences in knowledge? Would this not mean the whole Pyramid is built on shifting sands?" I speculated such a suggestion could be seen as a serious deviancy. Melphi seemed delited. "Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror." I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves. Melphi relplied, "History suggests, not until they are made to."

"The first of 'Goose's Two Laws of Survival.' It runs thus, 'The weak are meat the strong do eat.' ... Henry grinned in the dark & cleared his throat. "The second law of survival states that there is no second law. Eat or be eaten. That's it."

"Books'll be back, Esther-in-Unalaq predicts. "Wait till the power grids start failing in the 2030s and the datavats get erased. It's not far away. The future looks a lot like the past."

"Hobbies are for pleasure, but rituals keep you going."

"The Future, says Ian, in a film-trailer voice. "Coming soon, to a Present near you."

"Strip back the beliefs pasted on by governesses, schools, and states, you find indelible truths at one's core."

"I watched the stars and thought of other lives."

"Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong." I told him that he knows next to nothing about me & I know nothing about him. He jabbed at his eyes & jabbed at mine, as if that single gesture were ample explanation."

"Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' conscience; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding the mirror."I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves.Mephi replied, "History suggests, not until they are made to."

"Hey, metaphysics seminar is on the roof. Just take the elevator up and keep walking until you hit the sidewalk. Anything is true if enough people believe it."

"The body is the outermost layer of the mind."

"Always, it is the poor people who pay. And always, it is the poor people's women who pay the most."

"It's like the British in Ireland in 1916' , says Oisir O'Dowd. 'The repeated the ageless macho mantra, "Force is the only thing these natives understand, so often that they ended up believing it . From that point they were doomed."

"One's ribs shouldn't be prison bars."

"All the supernatural yarns need a realist explanation and a supernatural one."

"It's a very special talent that men have, to possess seeing eyes yet be so blind."

"A sprinkle of last-minute despair gives a soul an agreeably earthy aftertaste."

"Such narrative arcs make good movies but shitty existences."

"One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards will be at one's throat all the sooner."

"But, Henry, this is wicked!' But, Adam, the world is wicked. Maoris prey on Moriori, Whites prey on darker-hued cousins, fleas prey on mice, cats prey on rats, Christians on infidels, first mates on cabin boys, Death on the Living. 'The weak are meat, the strong do eat."

"Sometimes language can't even read the music of meaning."

"Have you noticed," said John, "how countries call theirs 'sovereign nuclear deterrents,' but call the other countries' ones 'weapons of mass destruction'?"

"Life's more science-fictiony by the day."

"A book can't be a half-fantasy any more than a woman can be half pregnant."

"The learnin' mind is the livin' mind... an' any sort o' smart is truesome smart, old smart or new, high smart or low."

"The empowered may serve justice, remodel the Earth, transform lush nations into smoking battlefields, and bring down skyscrapers, but power itself is amoral."

"This is my moral. Trust what you dream. Not what you think."

"At certain rare moments, a library is a kind of mind."

"If the human condition were the periodic table, maybe love would be hydrogen at No. 1. Death would be helium at No. 2. Power, I reckon, would be where oxygen is."

"Lunatics are writers whose works write them, Bat." "Not all lunatics are writers, Mrs. Rey-believe me." "But most writers are lunatics, Bat-believe me. The human world is made up of stories, not people."

"Implausible truth can serve one better than plausible fiction."

"The novelist is more like a pregnant woman who delivers her own child unaided. A messy procedure, with lots of groaning."

"There's no future in stories...Stories are things of the past, things for museums."

"Books don't offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw."

"Dreams are shores where the ocean of spirit meets the land of matter. Dreams are beaches where the yet-to-be, the once-were, the will-never-be may walk awhile with the still are."

"Grief is an amputation, but hope is incurable haemophilia: you bleed and bleed and bleed."

"Only I don't close my eyes these days, because it hurts too much when I open them."

"Survival often demands our courage."

"And grade every simile and metaphor from one star to five, and remove any threes or below. It hurts when you operate, but afterwards you feel much better."

"She was widely read enough to appreciate my literary wit but not so widely read that she knew my sources. I like that in a woman."

"The art teacher's scarlet book was called Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. 'As the title suggests,' Mr Dunwoody saw the book'd caught my attention, 'it's about the history of opticians. What are you about?"

"London is a language. I guess all places are."

"But this isn't a ghost story: the ghost is in the background, where she has to be. If she was in the foreground she'd be a person."

"The sacred is a fine hiding place for the profane."

"Your leaders must know powerful magic. Yes, said one of the women. The magic is called Marx, Stalin, Lenin and Class Dialectics. It didn't sound like very powerful magic to me."

"If losers can exploit what their adversaries teach them, yes, losers can become winners in the long term."

"So little is actually worthy of belief or disbelief. Better to strive to coexist than seek to disapprove . . ."