“Hadn't the myth of the glory of homeownership been debunked once and for all? Did he really want to trade his free time - and a formidable chunk of his savings - for a big white symbol of bourgeois propriety?”

“The Symbol of all Art is the Prism. The goal is destructive. To break up the white light of objective realism into the secret glories it contains.”

“Very softly, but very swiftly, Last, the man with the grey face and the staring eyes, bolted for his life, down and away from the White House. Once in the road, free from the fields and brakes, he changed his run into a walk, and he never paused or stopped, till he came with a gulp of relief into the ugly streets of the big industrial town. He made hi way to the station at once, and found that he was an hour too soon for the London express. So, there was plenty of time for breakfast; which consisted of brandy.”

“He says, "But it is really whatever, you know? You've saved me way more times. And we call ourselves friends."It doesn't matter what we call ourselves, really. "You already saved me," I say."That was nothing.""I'm not talking about the cave."He wrinkles his nose."That first day," I say, "When you got up on the rocks to flirt with a human boy."He smiles big, with all his ground-down teeth shining.”

“His tavern sign bore witness to his feats of arms. He had painted it himself, being a Jack-of-all-trades who did everything badly.”

“For a long time he had been white smoke. He did not realize that until he left the hospital, because white smoke had no consciousness of itself. It faded into the white world of their bed sheets and walls; it was sucked away by the words of doctors who tried to talk to the invisible scattered smoke... They saw his outline but they did not realize it was hollow inside.”