“Enchantment and seduction were fine means of persuasion, but when time is short, an awkward but quick concussion could better serve a girl's purpose.”

“Roderick Spode is the founder of the Saviours of Britain, a fascist organisation better know as the 'Black Shorts'...When you say 'shorts' mean 'shirts', of course.No. By the time Spode formed his association, there were no shirts left. He and his adherents wear black shorts.Footer bags, you mean?Yes.How perfectly foul.”

“Human communication, 'as the saying goes, is a clash of symbols' it covers a multitude of signs. But it is more than media and messages, information and persuasion; it also meets a deeper need and serves a higher purpose. Whether clear or garbled, tumultuous or silent, deliberate or fatally inadvertent, communication is the ground of meeting and the foundation of community. It is, in short, the essential human connection.”

“Love could be fractured and serve different purposes, and that intense love could be divided, between people just as easily as between moments of time.”

“Girls are like slugs—they probably serve some purpose, but it's hard to imagine what.”

“Long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings . . . but short words were slippery, unpredictable, changing their meanings without any pattern.”