“All these people like my mother paying counselors and clinics to reattach them to reality; all of us people here paying Sony and Sega to reattach us to unreality.”

“Always, it is the poor people who pay. And always, it is the poor people's women who pay the most.”

“Well, Hae-Joo probed, what did I do to relax? I play Go against my sony, I said."To relax?" he responded, incredulous. "Who wins, you or the sony?"The sony, I answered, or how would I ever improve?So winners, Hae-Joo proposed, are the real losers because they learn nothing? What, then, are losers? Winners?I said, If losers can xploit what their adversaries teach them, yes, losers can become winners in the long term.”

“…It's as if they actually think that what other people think of them somehow doesn't matter. I mean, I know we're all supposed to believe that, but obviously, none of us actually do. And nor should we, because it does! It does matter! And the people who genuinely believe it doesn't tend to be the very people who ought to care most what other people think of them, because what the other people are thinking is, 'No, actually, I don't think the Chinese are "up to something,"' or, 'You should use mouthwash,' or, 'Your mania for the collective socialization of agriculture will surely cause the deaths of millions,' or, 'Forty cats is too many cats.”

“War's an auction where whoever can pay the most in damage and still be standing wins.”

“All the seats were taken, and I had to squeeze into a three-inch slot. I lost my balance when the train pulled away, but a human crumple zone buffered my fall. We stayed like that, half fallen. The Diagonal People.”

“Surgeons are a singular brotherhood, Adam. To us, people aren't sacred beings crafted in the Almighty's image, no, people are joints of meat; diseased, leathery meat, yes, but meat ready for the skewer & the spit." He mimicked my usual voice, very well. "'But why *me*, Henry, are we not friends?' Well, Adam, even friends are made out of meat.”