“Publishers are notoriously slothful about numbers, unless they're attached to dollar signs - unlike journalists, quarterbacks, and felony criminal defendants who tend to be keenly aware of numbers at all times.”

“There's something very satisfying about numbers. Numbers are what they are. They are very straightforward. Unlike people.”

“Any do-gooder can save one life or a dozen by spending x dollars, but that doesn't demonstrate anything unless you've got x dollars multiplied by the total number of lives that need saving. Stopping poverty one victim at a time is like mowing a lawn one blade at a time. The problem grows faster than the cure can be applied, the only people who profit are the agencies who claim to be cutting grass while they're actually applying fertilizer.”

“A journalist who doesn't know how to find a phone number no matter how secret it is should change his profession.”

“Beyond it is the incalculable. In other words, numbers cannot exceed the number of things there are: so that for the teller and the audience of this tale, numbers still are attached to objects.”

“The office of Master of Traditions had fallen inevitably on Ponder Stibbons, who tended to get all the jobs that required someone who thought that things should happen on time and that numbers should add up.”