“The habit of misery had twisted these people, driving them to this paranoia. What had been diligence turned to desperation.”

“In a typical desperation for quick answers, easily understood, people had turned to primitive worship as the solution. With less than success. Not only had they died as quickly as the rest of the people, but they had died with terror in their hearts, with a mortal dread flowing in their very veins.”

“She had been so consumed with escaping her own misery, she hadn't considered the misery she might inflict.”

“The number of people who could deliver a kick to the balls with Aomame's mastery must have been few indeed. She had studied kick patterns with great diligence and never missed her daily practice.”

“Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them. [Witness for the Prosecution, also published in The Hound of Death and Other Stories.]”

“...it gratified him to feel like a desperate man. He had got into the habit of seeing himself always in desperate straits. His unhappy temperament was like a cage; he could never get out of it; and he felt that other people, his wife in particular, must have put him there. It had never more than dimly occurred to Frank that he made his own unhappiness.”