“But Dag, for all of his efforts, might as well have been talking to a cat. Our parents’ generation seems neither able nor interested in understanding how marketers exploit them. They take shopping at face value.”

“But they weren't in an ideal world. And it was too bad, Kit thought, exiting the shop. Bridget might have talked to her if they were. Kit might have been able to trust her. And neither of them would have to fear a man with a whole different sort of thrust-corrupted, soured, rotting...and seemingly unstoppable.”

“We dislike talking about our experiences. No explanations are needed for those who have been inside, and the others will understand neither how we felt then nor how we feel now.”

“The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so cannot; or they neither can nor will, or lastly, they are able and willing.If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can but will not, then they are not benevolent. If they are neither able nor willing, they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent.Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, why does it exist?”

“The world is full of Guses--good-looking boys and girls who've been dealt the best possible genetic hand by parents and grandparents and great-grandparents who have been doing neither well nor badly for generations; who engender these decent kids and give them just enough to survive in the world but no more--no spectacular beauty, no uncontainable brilliance, no kingly, unstoppable ambition.Isn't it the task of art to acclaim these people, to ennoble them? Consider Olympia. A girl of the streets becomes a deity.”

“But it is a strange experience, to a man of pride and sensibility, to know that his interests are within the control of individuals who neither love nor understand him”