“There was nowhere to sit except the bunk, which was covered with rotting food, and a wooden stool, upon which sat a large fur-covered lump—an old cheese, perhaps, or a dead cat.”

“If Black Stache laughed, you laughed. If he snarled, you snarled. If he breathed in your direction, you ran for cover.”

“Spiders so large they appear to be wearing the pelts of small mammals.”

“Land!” shouted Thomas.“Is there food?” asked Tubby Ted.”

“Which, as any American high school student can tell you, was an act that apparently had something to do with stamps.”

“Sir,” James asked, “what are we going to do?”“We’re going to look for water,” said Alf.“And food?” said Tubby Ted.“Water first,” said Alf. “We can go days without food.”“We can what?” Tubby Ted shouted.”

“I like the relaxed way in which the Japanese approach religion. I think of myself as basically a moral person, but I'm definitely not religious, and I'm very tired of the preachiness and obsession with other people's behavior characteristic of many religious people in the United States. As far as I could tell, there's nothing preachy about Buddhism. I was in a lot of temples, and I still don't know what Buddhists believe, except that at one point Kunio said 'If you do bad things, you will be reborn as an ox.'This makes as much sense to me as anything I ever heard from, for example, the Reverend Pat Robertson.”