“One look at a banana and you can tell it came from outer space.”

“In reality it was like this: Earth was colonized by the Zycronites, who developed the ability to travel from one space dimension to another at a period several millennia after the epoch of which we speak. They arrived here eight thousand years ago. They brought a lot of plant seeds with them, which is why we have apples and oranges, not to mention bananas—one look at a banana and you can tell it came from outer space. They also brought animals—horses and dogs and goats and so on. They were the builders of Atlantis. Then they blew themselves up through being too clever. We’re descended from the stragglers.”

“She was an infallible prophetess, and these powers came from her ability to look into the patterns of the universe.”

“The memos that came from above telling him he'd done a good job meant nothing to him because they'd been dictated by semi-literates; all they proved was that no one at AnooYou was capable of appreciating how clever he had been. He came to understand why serial killers sent helpful clues to the police.”

“From nowhere, a word appears: Mesozoic. He can see the word, he can hear the word, but he can't reach the word. He can't attach anything to it. This is happening too much lately, this dissolution of meaning, the entries on his cherished wordlists drifting off into space.”

“All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard.”

“Where was the threshold, between the inner world and the outer one? We each move unthinkingly through this gateway every day, we use the passwords of grammar--I say, you say, he and she, it, on the other hand, does not say--paying for the privilege of sanity with common coin, with meanings we've agreed on.”