“They were perfectly suited. They would speak of books the livelong day and night and bore everyone else but themselves to distraction.”

“Perfection shall remain the boring privilege of the gods, while our bungling, messy world every night shall be lived as if it were the last and every day as if it were the first.”

“If there were a nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not suited to men.”

“These emotional cues were distracting. I was used to arguing with scientists who would explain with perfectly bland faces why you were wrong and stupid.”

“An apocryphal story - the word "apocryphal" here means "obviously untrue" - tells of two people, long ago, who were very bored, and that instead of complaining about it they sat up all night and invented the game of chess so that everyone else in the world, on evenings when there is nothing to do, can also be bored by the perplexing and tedious game they invented.”

“If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction-and ultimately, without a major resolution.”