“Ex-act-ly, pre-cisely: with your usual acuteness, you have hit the nail straight on the head.”

“Bonzo, he pre-cise. He so careful, he piss on a plate and never splash.”

“Thwack. The nail drove deeper, as if Montgomery was driving it into my very heart. How hard was it to fix a loose nail? He hit it again and again, determined to set that bookshelf straight. Determined to do something right, after so much wrong.”

“There are terrible people who, instead of solving a problem, bungle it and make it more difficult for all who come after. Whoever can't hit the nail on the head should, please, not hit at all.”

“When we hit a nail with a hammer the whole of the shock received by the large head of the nail passes into a point without any of it being lost, although it is only a point. If the hammer and head of the nail were infinitely big, if would be just the same; the point of the nail would transmit this infinite shock at the point to which it was applied. Extreme affliction, which means physical pain, distress of the soul, and social degradation all at the same time, is a nail whose point is applied at the very center of the soul, whose head is all necessity, spreading throughout space and time”

“[Cora:] Did you hit your head on a library book?”