“We humans need one another. We live in a big house with many rooms. Right now our home is on fire. If you're going to try to put out the fire, you've got to first agree on one fundamental point--everyone in the house is worth saving.”

“On the roof, on the duvet under the steam vent, with the planets overhead, he let her scream all she wished. She screamed into the night. To the stars. At one point, with his lying atop her, he said, “Look over my left shoulder. Venus is visible tonight.” Then he pulled the covers away from her, wrestling her for the duvet, as he called, “Here she is, all you Venusians”—he lifted out his arm, using it to span the celestial horizon-—“and the rest of you planets out there: the most beautiful woman on Earth, spread-eagled for your pleasure!” He laughed. “At my disposal, mm-m-m!” He bent down, nibbling, kissing her neck with his teeth, his lips, his mouth.”

“If my house is on fire, I don't need the fire chief telling me I should not have built the house out of wood. I need somebody to put the fire out.”

“We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.”

“If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.”

“Please, amigo. We need you, Kimosabe, O Mighty Powerful One. We need you more than the earth rises in the west."The sun rises in the east, dickhead."Only if you're standing on the earth. If you're on the moon, the earth rises in the west.”

“Yey more and more there seemed a bevy of things she was not supposed to think about and by virtue of trying not to, she hardly thought of anything else.”