“The circle of an empty day is brutal and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose.”

“If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties? How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck?”

“A monarch’s neck should always have a noose around it—it keeps him upright.”

“if they put an iron circle around your neck I will bite it away”

“I, too, have ropes around my neck. I have them to this day, pulling me this way and that, East and West, the nooses tightening, commanding, choose, choose. I buck, I snort, I whinny, I rear, Ikick. Ropes, I do not choose between you. Lassoes, lariats, I choose neither of you, and both. Doyou hear? I refuse to choose.”

“But there is something about Time. The sun rises and sets. The stars swing slowly across the sky and fade. Clouds fill with rain and snow, empty themselves, and fill again. The moon is born, and dies, and is reborn. Around millions of clocks swing hour hands, and minute hands, and second hands. Around goes the continual circle of the notes of the scale. Around goes the circle of night and day, the circle of weeks forever revolving, and of months, and of years.”