“I slipped from present to past, sliding down the snake heads of memory into what was and what would never be again.”

“Samuel didn't move. 'What will you do if I climb off the bed?''Well I can eat you, or I can drag you down to the depths of Hell, never to seen or heard from again. Depends, really.''On what?''Lost of things: hygiene, for a start. After tasting that sock, I don't fancy eating any part of you, to be honest, so it'll have to be the depths of Hell for you, I'm afraid.”

“You mean they killed her?" asked David.They ate her," said Brother Number One. "With porridge. That's what 'ran away and was never seen again' means in these parts. It means 'eaten.'"Um and what about 'happily ever after'?" asked David, a little uncertainly. "What does that mean?"Eaten quickly," said Brother Number One.”

“There is a dark resource within all of us, a reservoir of hurt and pain and anger upon which we can draw when the need arises. Most of us rarely, if ever, have to delve too deeply into it. That is as it should be, because dipping into it costs and you lose a little of yourself each time, a small part of all that is good and honorable and decent about you. Each time you use it you have to go a little deeper, a little further down into the blackness. Strange creatures move through its depths, illuminated by a burning light from within and fueled only by the desire to survive and to kill. The danger in diving into that pool, in drinking from that dark water, is that one day you may submerge yourself so deeply that you can never find the surface again. Give in to it and you're lost forever.”

“a technician who uses the term “glitch” is like aDoctor who tells you you’re suffering from a “thingy,” except the doctor won’t tell you to go home and try turning yourself on and off again.”

“What do you believe in?’ asked David.‘I believe in those whom I love and trust. All else is foolishness. This god is as empty as his church. His followers choose to attribute all of their good fortune to him, but when he ignores their pleas or leaves them to suffer, they say only that he is beyond their understanding and abandon themselves to his will. What kind of god is that?”

“So what you gonna do?”“Push a stick into the beehive and rustle up some bees. The Larousses are hosting a party today. I think we should avail ourselves of their hospitality.”“We got an invite?”“Has not having one ever stopped us before?”“No, but sometimes I just like to be invited to shit, you know what I’m sayin’, instead of havin’ to bust in, get threatened, irritate the nice white folks, put the fear of the black man on them.”He paused, seemed to think for a while about what he had just said, then brightened.“Sounds good, doesn’t it?” I said.“Real good,” he agreed.”