“His cigarettes helped mark the passage of time, especially on days that seemed all sun and sky...The dependable dwindling of his cigarette supply reassured him that he hadn't been left out here, that eventually he would have to ride into town and things would still be there, that the world hadn't stopped whirling.”

“It turned out I had always been a smoker. I just hadn't had any cigarettes.”

“Saimun pondered. How come that when something is difficult to get or you don’t have it, and you just get a chance to taste it for a moment, a small matter can become so big, doubling, trebling, growing ever larger? This morning one kretek cigarette dominated his whole soul. As if his life depended on one cigarette and if he could get that cigarette his life would be prolonged, as it were, for ever. One cigarette could fulfill his existence.”

“Why, her father would turn in his grave--well, as a matter of fact, he was cremated, but what I mean is, if he hadn't been he would have. [Ermyntrude]”

“If God hadn't rested on Sunday, He would have had time to finish the world.”

“He wore the memory of her embrace like armor, and though he knew it would not save his life, it would be all that was left to him to ease his passage into whatever lay beyond.”