“In the grueling light that passed for day...”

“Stuff that would be weird in the bright light of day just wasn't so much once you passed a certain hour.”

“In theory I can do almost anything; certainly I have been told how. In practice I do as little as possible. I pretend to myself that I would be quite happy in a hermit's cave, living on gruel, if someone else would make the gruel. Gruel, like so many other things, is beyond me.”

“Hope often suffers a grueling death on the crags of reality”

“Doing anything for the holidays? Joe asked me. We were stopped at a traffic light that was generally acknowledged to be the slowest traffic light in Merrick. Whole days would pass and this traffic light would stay red. Kingdoms rose and fell, presidential administrations came and went, and the light obstinately refused to change.”

“The light is no mystery, the mystery is that there is something to keep the light from passing through.”