“And what is literature, Rabo," he said, "but an insider's newsletter about affairs relating to molecules, of no importance to anything in the universe but a few molecules who have the disease called 'thought'.”

“Harry closed his eyes. He never wanted to open them again. His heart sent this message to his molecules: "For reasons obvious to all of us, this galaxy is dissolved!”

“Rabo Karabekian: I'm in the middle of a sentence.Circe Berman: Who isn't?.”

“There is this thing called the university, and everybody goes there now. And there are these things called teachers who make students read this book with good ideas or that book with good ideas until that's where we get our ideas. We don't think them; we read them in books.I like Utopian talk, speculation about what our planet should be, anger about what our planet is.I think writers are the most important members of society, not just potentially but actually. Good writers must have and stand by their own ideas.”

“Human beings used to be molecules which could do many, many different sorts of dances, or decline to dance at all --as they pleased. My mother could do the waltz, the tango, the rumba....”

“And Castle nodded sagely. 'So this is a picture of the meaninglessness of it all! I couldn't agree more.''Do you really agree?' I asked. 'A minute ago you said something about Jesus.''Who?' said Castle.'Jesus Christ?''Oh,' said Castle. 'Him.' He shrugged. 'People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say.''I see.' I knew I wasn't going to have an easy time writing a popular article about him. I was going to have to concentrate on his saintly deeds and ignore entirely the satanic things he thought and said.”

“A minute ago you said something about Jesus.''Who?''Jesus Christ?''Oh. him.' He shrugged.'People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say.”