“Be real. I'm going up against three of the world's most vicious ubervillains. I have a very, very slim chance of survival. I have a better chance of winning the lottery, and I don't even play.”

“I figure you have the same chance of winning the lottery whether you play or not.”

“I'll admit that the idea of being adored for nothing but my face and my body has had an occasional appeal, in the way winning the lottery does. The difference is that I have a much better chance of winning the lottery.”

“On the very outside chance that we might play again, you should know that pool is the closest thing I have to a religion. Don't ever throw a game with me again.”

“Our culture believes strong individuals can transcend their circumstances. I myself don't much enjoy books by Hardy or Dreiser or Wharton, where the outside world is so strong, so overwhelming, that the individual hasn't a chance. I get impatient, I keep feeling that somehow the deck is stacked unfairly. That is the point, of course, but my feeling is that if that's true, I don't want to play. I prefer to move to another table where I can retain my illusion, if illusion it be, that I'm working only against only probabilities, and have a chance to win. Then if you lose, you can blame it on your own poor playing. That is called a tragic flaw, and like guilt, it's very comforting. You can go on believing that there really is a right way, and you just didn't find it.”

“After all, your chances of winning a lottery and of affecting an election are pretty similar. From a financial perspective, playing the lottery is a bad investment. But it's fun and relatively cheap: for the price of a ticket, you buy the right to fantasize how you'd spend the winnings - much as you get to fantasize that your vote will have some impact on policy.”