“Statesmen are grocers, ambitious clowns.”
“[Lydia tut-tutted on seeing the grocer's apostrophe]”
“Everyone hates clowns," Otis said. "Even other clowns hate clowns.”
“No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable.”
“Should you have liked your sister to have been noticed by a grocer's assistant for doing so?”"In the first place, as it is not many years since I myself was a draper's assistant, the mere circumstance of a grocer's assistant noticing any act does not alter the character of the act to me.”
“A clown on a throne is still a clown. A king in rags is still a king.”