“The mosaicist was making the fine hairs on the nape of Mona's swan neck out of chips of gold”

“Billy's smile as he came out of the shrubbery was at least as peculiar as Mona Lisa's, for he was simultaneously on foot in Germany in 1944 and riding his Cadillac in 1967.”

“Rumfoord had known that Constant would try to debase the picture by using it in commerce. Constant's father had done a similar thing when he found he could not buy Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" at any price. The old man had punished Mona Lisa by having her used in an advertising campaign for suppositories. It was the free-enterprise way of handling beauty that threatened to get the upper hand.”

“Only my complacent Mona crossed the crack with a simple step . . .She wasn’t depressed or angry. In fact, she seemed to verge on laughter. ‘He always said he would never take his own advice, because he knew it was worthless.”

“Here was what Kilgore Trout cried out to me in my father's voice: "Make me young, make me young, make me young!”

“So now we can build an unselfish society by devoting to unselfishness the frenzy we once devoted to gold and to underpants.”

“The mind is the only thing about human beings that’s worth anything. Why does it have to be tied to a bag of skin, blood, hair, meat, bones and tubes? No wonder people can’t get anything done, stuck for life with a parasite that has to be stuffed with food and protected from weather and germs all the time. And the fool thing wears out anyway – no matter how much you stuff and protect it.”