“...and nostalgia swept through Jimmy like a sudden hunger.”

“Life Stories: Why hunger for these? One, it fits a hunger. Maybe it is more like bossiness. Maybe we just want to be in charge of the life, no matter who lived it...”

“You need to give money when someone gives you a knife. So the bad luck won't cut you. I wouldn't like it for you to be cut by the bad luck, Jimmy.”

“But the adjectives change,” said Jimmy. “Nothing’s worse than last year’s adjectives.”

“Your friend is intellectually honourable," Jimmy's mother would say. "He doesn't lie to himself.”

“…Homo sapiens doesn’t seem able to cut himself off at the supply end. He’s one of the few species that doesn’t limit reproduction in the face of dwindling resources. In other words - and up to a point, of course - the less we eat, the more we fuck.’‘How do you account for that?’ said Jimmy.‘Imagination,’ said Crake, ‘Men can imagine their own deaths, they can see them coming, and the mere thought of impending death acts like an aphrodisiac. A dog or a rabbit doesn’t behave like that. Take birds - in a lean season they cut down on the eggs, or they don’t mate at all. They put their energy into staying alive themselves until times get better. But human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else, some new version of themselves, and live on forever.’‘As a species we’re doomed by hope then?’ ‘You could call it hope. That, or desperation.’ ‘But we’re doomed without hope, as well,’ said Jimmy.‘Only as individuals,’ said Crake cheerfully.‘Well, it sucks.’‘Jimmy, grow up.’Crake wasn’t the first person who ever said that to Jimmy.”

“Hunger is the best sauce.”