“...he had long decided that abundant laughter should be the embellishment of the remainder of his days.”

“Whoever had decided that school should start so early in the morning and last all day long needed to be hunted down and forced to watch hours of educational televison without the aid of caffine.”

“He decided that for an ounce of that laughter, he could sacrifice an entire lifetime of happiness.”

“. . . the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull.”

“The past was gone and the future had yet to unfold, and he knew he should focus his life on the present…yet his day-to-day existence suddenly struck him as endless and unbearable.”

“Before he had come to the town he had known about nothing but death: here he had learnt to live, to decide things for himself; he had learnt what it felt like to wash in clean water in the sunshine until he was clean himself, and what it felt like to satisfy his hunger with food that tasted good; he had learnt the sound of laughter that was free from cruelty; he had learnt the meaning of beauty”