“Even gods decay. Like, in 1890 somebody sold off thousands of mummified Ancient Egyptian sacred cats - _for fertilizer_. Get the point? Constancy isn't.”

“The Ancient Egyptians were not fools, Carter. They built the pyramids. They created the first great nation state. Their civilization lasted thousands of years.”“Yeah,” I said. “And now they’re gone.”

“In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.”

“When the ancient Egyptians finished building the pyramids, they had built the pyramids.”

“Whenever I think about ancient cultures nostalgia seizes me. Perhaps this is nothing but envy of the sweet slowness of the history of that time. The era of ancient Egyptian culture lasted for several thousand years; the era of Greek antiquity for almost a thousand. In this respect, a single human life imitates the history of mankind; at first it is plunged into immobile slowness, and then only gradually does it accelerate more and more.”

“Even cats have questions – like “Can’t you see my bowl is empty?” or “Why don’t you turn off the ***! rain now?” From their perspective we are gods!”