“I still have a fondness for books. Many a time I will be antiquing, and I'll say, 'What's that old-timey curio over there? What is that, a candlestick telephone, one of those old pull-chain toilets? Oh no, it's a book. I used to help make those things! I will buy it and use it to decorate my chain of casual family-dining restaurants.”

“I Know you are asking: What if I am wrong?What if RAGNAROK does not come? What if it does not happen the way I say it is going to happen? I suppose that is a possibility.Perhaps the Mayans WERE wrong.Maybe we WILL enter a new era of consciousness.Maybe we will NOT destroy ourselves with technology.Perhaps it will be that some new old god comes. Say his name is DOZGOTH, the 701st, and say he takes pity on us. And a thousand years after all the suffering of RAGNOROK, he will retcon us back to the very day this book was pusblished.You will remember nothing of what happened or what you did to survive. The only evidence that any of this ever happened will be this book, and the fact that ou now have a tentacle instead of an arm. But you will explain that away simply by saying you are wearing an octopus sleeve. The mind can explain so many things when it wants to close its eyes and sleep.Perhaps only one person will remember what really happened, and he will be named Jonathan Coulton. But he cannot tell anyone, for he is but an animal.”

“How to Win a Fight - Step 1: Always make eye contact. Step 2: Go ahead and use henchmen - these days it's unnecessary and frowned upon to fight your own battles, especially with so many henchmen out of work. Step 3: Run lots of attack ads - I have run about 500 attack ads this year, and I expect that I will buy even more air time next year, because my enemies are getting stronger.”

“This is one of the defining sorrows of books: that we cannot see one another.”

“Generally speaking, I think it is fair to say that I am a friend to the creatures of the Earth when I am not busy eating them or wearing them.”

“If you have not seen it, FOOTBALL is a game in which men shove one another back and forth for no reason. They do not choose how, when, or whom they shove. All that has been decided for them in advance. All they need to do is follow the orders given to them before the game, showing them where to run and how to violently deploy the meat of their bodies against the meat that is running at them. They are doing this in order to please one angry old man on the sidelines. This old man is called the "coach" or "yelling surrogate dad who will never be happy.”

“A stopped clock is correct twice a day, but a sundial can be used to stab someone, even at nighttime.”