“He had only heard of dragons, and although he had never seen one, he was sure they existed.”

“It was possible that there were other vus of which he had never heard and that one of these other vus would explain succinctly the baffling phenomenon of which he had been both a witness and a part; it was even possible that none of what he thought had taken place, really had taken place, and that he was dealing with an aberration of memory rather than of perception, that he never really had thought he had seen what he now thought he once did think he had seen, that his impression now that he once had thought so was merely the illusion of an illusion, and that he was only now imagining that he had ever once imagined seeing a naked man sitting in a tree at the cemetery.”

“He looked the boy up and down as if he had never seen a child before and wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do with one: eat it, ignore it or kick it down the stairs.”

“Later he had seen the things that he could never think of and later still he had seen much worse.”

“Muttering a curse, he wiped his face with a towel and wondered why everyone suddenly felt that they had to offer an opinion on his love life, although he was fairly sure he had never asked for anyone's views on the matter.”

“He had turned into a dragon while he was asleep. Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.”