“On Gortician, a promotion was survival. Firings were literal. You were incinerated, and your successor’s first job was sweeping your ashes up for Ned’s AtomicDustbin, Gortician’s recycle center.”

“Why do you not do as I do? Letting go of your thoughts as though they were the cold ashes of a long dead fire?”

“The Cinderella story in reverse. I only wish there were ashes in the fireplace so I could order you to sweep them out.”

“If you lived today as if it were your last, you'd buy up a box of rockets and fire them all off, wouldn't you?”

“Yeah, you were doing a real bang-up job of it. I particularly liked the way you were bruising his fists with your face. A few minutes more and I’m sure your heart would have been on the attack...after it was ripped from your chest. (Kat)”

“Life is like a recycling center, where all the concerns and dramas of humankind get recycled back and forth across the universe. But what you have to offer is your own sensibility, maybe your own sense of humor or insider pathos or meaning. All of us can sing the same song, and there will still be four billion different renditions.”