“Put a higher value on yourself. Being hyper-realistic about everything is too simple a get-out.”

“I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring. And that's my one fear: that everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again ... the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul”

“Recently she had become intrigued by the admiring glances of other women. The admiration of her own sex existed on a higher and more intense plane than anything men could offer, like the romantic rivalries of sisters. Together, women formed a conspiracy of glances entirely exchanged behind the backs of their menfolk.”

“Sooner or later, everything turns into television.”

“The endless newsreel clips of nuclear explosions that we saw on TV in the 1960s (were) a powerful incitement to the psychotic imagination, sanctioning *everything*.”

“After being bombarded endlessly by road-safety propaganda it was almost a relief to find myself in an actual accident.”

“He methodically basted the dark skin of the Alsatian, which he had stuffed with garlic and herbs."One rule in life", he murmured to himself. "If you can smell garlic, everything is all right".”