“There's the South Pole, said Christopher Robin, and I expect there's an East Pole and a West Pole, though people don't like talking about them.”

“Sabine gestured to him with the half-eaten crust. "I like him. Not sure why he's wasting his time with the pole dancer, though."Tod laughed out loud and I groaned. "Sophie takes ballet and jazz. She's not a pole dancer.""There's more money in pole dancing," Sabine insisted.”

“So listen -- one way to lower the flag to half-mast is just to lower the flag. There's another way though. You can also just raise the pole. You can raise the pole to like twice it's original height.”

“Sometimes in life there's no problem and sometimes in there is no solution. In this space - between these apparent poles - life flows.”

“If we have a simple existence, we shall feel how happy and how fortunate we are. There are some people who are of the opinion that simplicity is almost tantamount to stupidity. But simplicity and stupidity are like the North Pole and the South Pole. One can be as simple as a child and, at the same time, one can have boundless knowledge, light and wisdom.”

“Aesthetic and utilitarian considerations aside," I said, "Those mittens don't particularly make sense. Why would you want to hitchhike to the North Pole? Isn't the whole gimmick of Christmas that there's home delivery? You get up there, all you're going to find is a bunch of exhausted, grumpy elves. Assuming, of course, that you accept the mythical presence of a workshop up there, when we all know there isn't even a pole at the North Pole, and if global warming continues, there won't be any ice, either.""Why don't you just fuck off?" the woman replied. Then she took her mittens and got out of there.”