“There are a lot of fun vacation spots in the universe; the bug-pits of Aylorta Five are not one of them.”

“I'm holding a super-expandable energy-powered towel. I've made friends with space hamsters. I think we've stretched believability rather far, don't you?”

“You said five little words to someone--How can I help you?--and it was as if you'd mortgaged your soul out to them.”

“I was on the verge of something numinous and profound and in one more second the universe was going to crack open and arcana would rain down on my head like grace and all the cosmic mysteries were going to be revealed.”

“He dribbles a lot and the opposition don't like it—you can see it all over their faces.”

“In every age "the good old days" were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them. ”

“The roof of the big top was dark blue, spangled with silver stars, and it reminded him of something but he couldn't think what, and then he realized it was the roof - the vault of heaven - in a side chapel at the Catholic church where his mother dragged them three times a day on Sunday when they were very small, until she ran out of energy and let the devil have them. (One Good Turn)”