“To be well married you have to a penchant for the intricacies of intimacy and larval change..If the personality is a spider's web, you will want to know every thread...Pleasures no longer come to you, but there are pickings to be had if you can learn to scavenge for them" ("The Body")”

“Why don’t we give her a crumb or two of that?""For the same reason that I do not try to pull a thread free from a cobweb and use it to darn my socks," growled Grandible. "Pull on a thread, and you pull on the whole web. And then out come the spiders . . .”

“Every person that you meet knows something you don't; learn from them.”

“I'd learned never to be a snob until I got to know a person's worth; and how can you get to know a person well if you don't have coffee together?”

“It's funny how strangers can pass in front of you every day and all you see is a flat shadow, a vague outline, not noticing any of the details. They move in a gray crowd, always looking the same and acting the same, simple caricatures of who they really are, but once you get to know them, you notice the specific, tiniest things, you pay attention to the intricacies of their personalities, their habits and particular ways of walking and talking, the subtle changes in their appearance and dress.”

“Do you understand how there could be any writing in a spider's web?""Oh, no," said Dr. Dorian. "I don't understand it. But for that matter I don't understand how a spider learned to spin a web in the first place. When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle.""What's miraculous about a spider's web?" said Mrs. Arable. "I don't see why you say a web is a miracle-it's just a web.""Ever try to spin one?" asked Dr. Dorian.”