“I don't know." That was typical Sajaki; like all the genuinely clever people Sylveste had met he knew better than to feign understanding where none existed.”

“I usually like to interact with people who don't speak until it's necessary but I was intimidated by Carl's physique. I didn't feel inferior so much as incompatible. Carl existed on a plane where success was measured by physical feats. He had a brain because his body needed it, rather than the opposite. I didn't understand such people. I didn't know what they wanted, or might do.”

“Things like crowns had a troublesome effect on clever folk; it was best to leave all the reigning to the kind of people whose eyebrows met in the middle when they tried to think. In a funny sort of way, they were much better at it.”

“Some people know they are going to heaven and those they do not like are going to hell. I am going where the Boss puts me. He knows where I belong better than I do.”

“These days, people spent too much time striving to understand their feelings - and then ended up with none that were genuine.”

“None of them knew that it wasn't because he was a nice guy; it was because he was one of them. The hard reality was that life had put them all where they didn't want to be, namely on their backs for people they didn't want to be fucking.”