“People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.”

“The words kept coming back to him, statement of a mystical truth and a palpable absurdity.”

“...the way the diamond caused people to reasses her--their palpable appreciation that Drew was loved by someone, was someone worth loving”

“People who cannot restrain their own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility, are not capable of self-government... without virtue, a society can be ruled only by fear, a truth that tyrants understand all too well”

“People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it's impossible to count them accurately.”

“There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.”