“You know," said Al in a daze of hunger and cold, "when you see this, you realize that despite all the crap that goes on in the cities, despite all the words and accusations, the country has balance and momentum. The whole thing is symmetrical and beautiful; it works. The cities are like bulbs on a Christmas tree. They may bum, swell, and shatter, but the green stays green. Look at it," he said, eyes fixed on the horizon, not unmoved by the motion of the train. "Look at it. It's alive.”

“See?” Jenny said. “That was good. A comforting gesture, and completely unprompted on my part. You’re aquick study. Even you will have to admit that, despite your appeal to logic, touch works. All the cold in me flows to you.”“Cold can’t flow,” he said, pulling her closer. “Only heat.Thermodynamically speaking—”“Gareth?”He looked down.“Don’t ruin this.”He didn’t.”

“I grow green beans in my garden. The one thing I know about harvesting them is that you need to train your eyes to see the beans. At first it all looks like leaves, until you see one bean and then another and another. If you want clarity, too, you have to look hard. You have to look under things and look from different angles. You'll see what you need to when you do that. A hundred beans, suddenly.”

“It's my uniform. Everyone in my company wears it.""It's hideous."Rose felt her hackles rise. The neon green uniform was hideous, butshe didn't appreciate him pointing it out. She opened her mouth."Yet despite it, you look lovely," he said."Flattery will get you nowhere," she told him."It's not flattery," he said coldly. "Flattery requires exaggeration.I'm merely stating a fact. You're a beautiful woman wearing an uglysack of unnatural color.”

“I was standing in the doorway when he said hi,” Amy said. “And from the look on his face, what he has for you is not the key to the city.”

“Symmetry is only a property of dead things. Did you ever see a tree or a mountain that was symmetrical? It’s fine for buildings, but if you ever see a symmetrical human face, you will have the impression that you ought to think it beautiful, but that in fact you find it cold. The human heart likes a little disorder in its geometry, Kyria Pelagia. Look at your face in a mirror, Signorina, and you will see that one eyebrow is a little higher than the other, that the set of the lid of your left eye is such that the eye is a fraction more open that the other. It is these things that make you both attractive and beautiful, whereas…otherwise you would be a statue. Symmetry is for God, not for us.”