“A truth should exist,it should not be usedlike this. If I love youis that a fact or a weapon?”

“i)We are hard on each otherand call it honesty,choosing our jagged truthswith care and aiming them acrossthe neutral table.The things we say are true; it is our crooked aims, our choicesturn them criminal.ii)Of course your liesare more amusing:you make them new each time.Your truths, painful and boringrepeat themselves over & over perhaps because you ownso few of themiii)A truth should exist,it should not be usedlike this. If I love youis that a fact or a weapon?iv)Does the body liemoving like this, are these touches, hairs, wet soft marble my tongue runs overlies you are telling me?Your body is not a word,it does not lie or speak truth either.It is onlyhere or not here.”

“If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon?”

“Every child should have love, every person should have it. She herself would rather have had her mother's love - the love she still continued to believe in, the love that had followed her through the jungle in the form of a bird so she would not be too frightened or lonely.”

“Of course (said Oryx), having a money value was no substitute for love. Every child should have love, every person should have it. . . . but love was undependable, it came and then it went, so it was good to have a money value, because then at least those who wanted to make a profit from you would make sure you were fed enough and not damaged too much. Also there were many who had neither love nor a money value, and having one of these things was better than having nothing.”

“If you want what's in the package you should at least know how to get the string off, is what I say.”

“I should have known better than to rely on pills. You can't buy unconsciousness quite so cheaply.”