“A yawning repetitiveness as of a man who knows few words but will not stop talking.”

“What is this? He has a sensation of touching glass. He doesn't know if they are talking about nothing or making code for the deepest meanings.”

“A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership.”

“From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few. ”

“Oh,' she says, 'the Vat prints nothing but rapes. You know what a rape usually is? It's a woman who changed her mind afterward.”

“What is the past, after all, but a vast sheet of darkness in which a few moments, pricked apparently at random, shine?”

“Wickedness was like food: once you got started it was hard to stop; the gut expanded to take in more and more.”