“As the natural coherence of the world vanishes, there's a guilt that grows great and angry in the basement of our beings.”

“All of us have theories about the world and about ourselves. We will go to great lengths to prove ourselves right because it keeps the world in our head coherent and understandable.”

“I wish that strife would vanish away from among gods and mortals, and gall, which makes a man grow angry for all his great mind, that gall of anger that swarms like smoke inside of a man's heart and becomes a thing sweeter to him by far than the dripping of honey.”

“But, for now, I retreated back down the little hidden staircase into the familiar world of the basement of the Natural History Museum, and to the embrace of the trilobites.”

“Harry looked at Margaret and thought that, should a woman grow old, she might still have her deepest charm. Should a woman grow old, she would still be a woman, the essence of being so being so inerasable as never to vanish. And if men were to understand this as they, too, grew old, the world would be a happier place.”

“These days there's no time to be bored, happiness has vanished somewhere in the world, and all that's left is dismay.”