“That’s what you get for being food.”

“So that’s what art is, for the artist,” said Crake. “An empty drainpipe. An amplifier. A stab at getting laid.”

“What you get is no longer what you see.”

“What fiendishness went on in kitchens across the country, in the name of providing food!”

“Imagine a famine. Now imagine a piece of bread. Both of these things are real but you happen to be in the same room with only one of them. Put yourself into a different room, that’s what the mind is for.”

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

“Why are you so interested in amoebas?""Oh, they're immortal," he said, "and sort of shapeless and flexible. Being aperson is getting too complicated.”