“THE BAD THING ABOUT FEARIs it requires a reaction. Some hide.Some cry. But, like a dog condemnedto a walled yard with no hopeof escape or affection, some learnto bite.”

“The bad news was that the yard contained a dog. A very, very large dog, wide and hairy, like a cross between a rottweiler and a Goodyear blimp.”

“Some philosophers can't bear to say simple things, like "Suppose a dog bites a man." They feel obliged instead to say, "Suppose a dog d bites a man m at time t," thereby demonstrating their unshakable commitment to logical rigor, even though they don't go on to manipulate any formulae involving d, m, and t.”

“The first thing you see, covering yards and yards of one wall, is an object that looks like a nickel-plated nuclear reactor, but is really the stove.”

“To some dogs I don’t like cats, to some cats I don’t like dogs, and to some people I don’t like. Mostly the people I don’t like are lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians.”

“Some people you just had to embrace, in some way or another, had to bite into the muscle, to remain sane in their company. You needed to grab their hand and clutch it like a downer so they would pull you into their midst. Otherwise they, walking casually down the street towards you, almost about to wave, would leap over a wall and be gone for months.”