“She saw the normative life of the planet, business people crossing streets beneath glass towers, the life of sitting on buses that take you logically to destinations, the unnerved surface of rolling plausibly along.”

“Every time she saw a videotape of the planes she moved a finger toward the power button on the remote. Then she kept on watching. The second plane coming out of that ice blue sky, this was the footage that entered the body, that seemed to run beneath her skin, the fleeting sprint that carried lives and histories, theirs and hers, everyone's, into some distance, out beyond the towers.”

“Jessie was trying to read science fiction but nothing she read so far could begin to match ordinary life on this planet, she said, for sheer unimaginableness.”

“The instant he knew he loved her, she slipped down his body and out of his arms. Then she wedged herself through the narrow opening in the boards and he watched her cross the street. Nothing moved out there. She was the lone stroke of motion, crew and extras gone, equipment gone, and she was cool and silvery slim and walking head-high, with technical precision, toward the last trailer in the service station, where she would find her clothes, dress quickly and disappear.”

“You live in a tower that soars to heaven and goes unpunished by God.”

“Grass: I live in a great steel tower that reflects the blazing sun. People catch fire just walking by. The more bodies that pile up around you, the greater your equity, the stronger your power, the longer you live. This is the point of living in a high rise. To see the bodies pile up at sunset, the nostalgic hour, the hour of summing up, stirring the cocktails, feeling the great tower sway in the hot winds. ”

“Some people are larger than life. Hitler is larger than death.”