“The ants were busy on the ground, big black ones with shiny bodies and the little dusty quick ants. Kino watched with the detachment of God while a dusty ant frantically tried to escape the sand trap an ant lion had dug for him.He watched the ants moving, a little column of them near to his foot, and he put his foot in their path. Then the column climbed over his instep and continued on its way, and Kino left his foot there and watched them move over it.”

“Watch an Ant, Watch the bees, feel wind move the leaves. Touch your smile above your chin from the glorious world we all live in.”

“Lead looked to his hand and saw sparkling chunks of glass in the cracks of the road. He saw ants running around the cracks, infinitely small. His blood ran into the cracks, creating rivers for the industrious ants to perplex over. Lead smiled at the creatures, for he understood that there is no difference between them and us in their wanderings and labor.”

“Watching Castro, whose tiny hands looked like marshmallows, hoist the ball from his waist and through the hoop seemed like the human equivalent of an ant lifting fifty times its body weight.”

“Failure is a state of mind. It's like one of those sand traps an ant lion digs. You keep sliding back. Takes one hell of a jump to get out of it.”

“She watched me with a creepy sort of detached curiosity, as if I were a bug crawling across the sidewalk in front of her. I wondered briefly if she was the ant stomper type.”