“They're fanatics. It's like expecting humanity from a falling rock. It's not going to have a fit of compassion and not crack your skull open.”

“A pity to survive night flights over St. Georges Channel only to crack my skull falling from a ladder.”

“There was a sharp crack from somewhere on the mountain. Then another. It's just a tree falling, he said. It's okay. The boy was looking at the dead roadside trees. It's okay, the man said. All the trees in the world are going to fall sooner or later. But not on us.”

“It's the pointless things that give your life meaning. Friendship, compassion, art, love. All of them pointless. But they're what keeps life from being meaningless.”

“Hot weather opens the skull of a city, exposing its white brain, and its heart of nerves, which sizzle like the wires inside a lightbulb. And there exudes a sour extra-human smell that makes the very stone seem flesh-alive, webbed and pulsing.”

“You have the chance of a lifetime and your ready to throw it away because their's a crack in your skull.”