“It used to be just CIA agents with ear-pieces who walked round with preoccupied, faraway expressions, and consequently regarded all the little people as irrelevant scum. Now, understandably, it's nearly everybody.”

“He works for the CIA. Johnny Redyellow is his name, but I just simply call him Agent Orange.”

“All round there was a rising tide of beer, widow Désir's barrels had all been broached, beer had rounded all paunches and was overflowing in all directions, from noses, eyes - and elsewhere. People were so blown out and higgledy-piggledy, that everybody's elbows or knees were sticking into his neighbour and everybody thought it great fun to feel his neighbour's elbows. All mouths were grinning from ear to ear in continuous laughter.”

“Everyone believes in sin, the people who charge their peers with political incorrectness and the people who regard political correctness as the bogey of a little mind. What everyone does not believe in, as nearly as I can tell, is forgiveness.”

“The Earth is deep, and right to the heart it's alive. We people only live on the top, like the bugs that live on the scum of the still water near the shore.”

“This is just a little love song I for my wife. Or for everybody who is going to listen now, but I wrote it for my wife.”