“It's an ancient and honorable term for the final step in any engineering project. Turn it on, see if it smokes.”

“If they projected the fact that they are dangerous any harder, there would be little puddles of "danger" on the floor around them. Look, it's "danger", don't step in it!”

“A classic is the term given to any book which comes to represent the whole universe, a book on a par with ancient talismans.”

“This is who she is. She is this movement here, these steps, this turn, this raising of this arm. It's a waste of time to think of oneself in any other terms. For what of us, what of reality, cannot implode, evaporate, contort, evade, disappear? But the body doesn't lie. At a certain point it's impossible to dance loneliness without feeling genuinely lonely.”

“Everywhere you turn you see Americans sacrifice their long-term interests for a short-term reward.”

“Its tall chimneys throw up black smoke, impregnating everything with soot, and the miners' faces as they traveled the streets were also imbued with that ancient melancholy of smoke, unifying everything with its grayish monotones, a perfect coupling with the gray mountain days.”