“There was no girls' cross-country team at our high school, since cross-country courses were two or three miles long, and, at that distance, a girl's uterus could fall out.”

“Every hour of television that a person watches after the age of twenty-five, the researchers concluded, potentially snips twenty-two minutes off of the viewer's life span.”

“Drop onto all fours and crawl the length of the court or field, as if you were climbing a wall. This prepares you, too, for light cat burgling, should your athletic career flag.”

“The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the measure of a country isn't in how its richest citizens fare, but in how its poorest citizens live.”

“As I turned the key and pushed open the front door, as I crossed the threshold, I thought how breathtaking, how fleeting, how precious was my ordinary day Now is now. Here is my treasure.”

“The two men -- Fray and Malkin -- were standing near each other. They were not unarmed. They were quite seriously not unarmed. Both men were carrying -- or at least aiming -- what could only be categorised as small artillery pieces: two bulky gas-powered spinguns, so heavy that they had to be strapped to their bodies via thick leather girdles. Malkin was aiming at the angels, more or less.”

“Cross-country skiing is fine as long as you live in a small country.”