“Father's always saying that South Africa must be one of the best countries in the world for surviving a zombie apocalypse,' Megan says seriously. 'It's full of security estates and high fences.”

“Everything's better with zombies - NOT”

“Who can explain why a few words in a particular tone can clear acres of sudden unfamiliarity? ...Would that person look up and grin, and find him grinning back, full of the sweet miraculous relief of having been perfectly received? ...He was saying, if it's not carrots, it's something else; he was saying, How futile life is, the slicing of carrots, the eating of meals; he was saying, How wonderful life is, to come home to the security of carrots in the kitchen; he was saying, Another day come to its devastating close. He was saying all this and I heard him because he was like me, entirely ambivalent about life. It was almost a question: Should I be full of joy or despair, Rosie? Joy, my face always replied to him, not because I felt sure that was the answer, but because I'd begun to want to make it his.”

“Instead of working for the survival of the fittest, we should be working for the survival of the wittiest - then we can all die laughing.”

“Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then--we elected them. ”

“It came to him that he didn't like holidays. . . . They bore down on you. Each one always ended up feeling like an exam . . .”

“The best mind altering drug is the truth.”