“The Tralfamadorians tried to give Billy clues that would help him imagine sex in the invisible dimension. They told him that there could be no Earthling babies without male homosexuals. There could be babies without female homosexuals. There couldn't be babies without women over sixty-five years old. There could be babies without men over sixty-five. There couldn't be babies without other babies who had lived an hour or less after birth. And so on. It was gibberish to Billy.”

“The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed.”

“ I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands. In the course of the experiment, that chimp had a baby. Imagine how her trainers must have thrilled when the mother, without prompting, began to sign her newborn. Baby, drink milk. Baby, play ball. And when the baby died, the mother stood over the body, her wrinkled hands moving with animal grace, forming again and again the words: Baby, come hug, Baby come hug, fluent now in the language of grief.”

“Babies are born without knee-caps.”

“I couldn't help shaking my head as I looked at him. Ian slept like a baby every morning - well, a baby who continually kept one hand down his pants.”

“Bring a baby to any grown-up -- even the gruffest or most inhibited -- and watch what happens. Without exception, they will do something to try and make the baby laugh. Psychologists, anthropologists, and other experts have theories about why this is so. For me it's enough to believe that whenever a baby laughs, our humanity is somehow exalted.”