“The gaping trunk looked like the mouth of a village idiot who was explaining that he didn't know anything about anything.”

“People talk a lot about all the homosexuals there are to see in Greenwich Village, but it was all the neuters that caught my eye that day. These were my people -- as used as I was to wanting love from nowhere, as certain as I was that almost anything desirable was likely to be booby-trapped.”

“He didn't look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo.”

“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'.”

“All people are insane. They will do anything at any time, and God help anybody who looks for reasons.”

“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.”

“This person has just arrived on this planet, knows nothing about it, has no standards by which to judge it. This person does not care what it becomes. It is eager to become absolutely anything it is supposed to be.”