“If swans weren't real, myths'd make them up.”

“During those nine pouched-up months, what do babies imagine? Gills, swamps, battlefields? To people in wombs, what is imagined and what is real must be one and the same.”

“I added 'writers' to my list of people not to trust. They make everything up.”

“Little girls are like old cats. If they don't like you nothing on Earth will make them pretend to.”

“There are different ways people make this place. Sweat, exercise and pain is one way. You can see them in the gyms, in the well-ordered swimming pools. You can see them jogging in the small, worn parks. Another way to make your place is TV. A bright, brash place, always well lit, full of fun and jokes that tell you when to laugh so you never miss them. World news carefully edited so that it’s not too disturbing, but disturbing enough to make you glad that you weren’t born in a foreign country. News with music to tell you who to hate, who to feel sorry for, and who laugh at.”

“Books don't offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.”

“So winners, Hae-Joo proposed, are the real losers because they learn nothing? What, then, are losers? Winners?”