“The jet switched everything, one setting gone and the other there, like a conjuring act. This disorienting and instantaneous change of scene made places seem like channels on TV.”

“A human being is like a television set with millions of channels.... We cannot let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to recover our own sovereignty.”

“What is life without death? That's like asking what is peanut butter without jelly? Or a baseball game on TV and changing the channel? Or government without taxes? Actually, I like those last two.”

“When it's not always raining there'll be days like this. When there's no one complaining there'll be days like this. When everything falls into place like the flick of a switch. Well my mama told me there'll be days like this. ”

“The room was very quiet. I walked over to the TV set and turned it on to a dead channel-white noise at maximum decibels, a fine sound for sleeping, a powerful continuous hiss to drown out everything strange.”

“Gundar seemed to come to a decision. "Well, as my old mam used to say, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's probably a duck." "Very wise," Halt said. "And what exactly do your mother's words of wisdom have to do with this situation?" Gundar shrugged. "It looks like a channel. It's the right place for a channel. If I were digging one, this is where I'd dig a channel. So. . ." "So it's probably the channel?" Selethen said. Gundar grinned at him. "Either that or it's a duck.”