“Mouse of Billy from the good ol’ days of getting the crap tortured out of him every day. Merkin would die a painful death if Mouse got to him first.”

“Mouse adored Eve. If he could admit it to himself, he had a bit of a crush on her. But he never would—that would feel traitorous. He would never be that. Fucking Merkin.”

“The more the mouse pursues this line of of thought, the more it seems to him that the cat is a large, soft mouse.”

“If one day, a bhailach...ye should meet a verra large mouse named Michael-ye'll tell him your grandsire sends his regards.”

“It was not death or dying that frightened him, but the unexpectedness of both. In sorting it all out, he hit on the notion that if one day a year were devoted to it, everybody could get it out of the way and the rest of the year would be safe and free. In this manner he instituted National Suicide Day.”

“He is blessed who is assured that the animal is dying out in him every day by day, and the divine being established.”