“They were slowing down. The noise of the rope as they reached the full extent of the jump sounded like the ricochet crack of the sail on a tall ship. And now they were accelerating again, up, up and suddenly they were hanging suspended: weightless in space. No up or down. The feeling of disorientation absolute.”

“The store owner had settled himself behind the counter again and was reaching for his book. "The journey will test your sanity." He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, as though there were nothing extraordinary about his words. "And once you start walking down that road, there is no turning back. You will start craving the rush. One can become addicted to madness, you know. Develop a taste for it." He looked down at the book in his hands, frowned and turned a page.”

“Men don't become worth your while until they're in their thirties." …"Well, it's not automatic with all men, you know." …"With women, of course, it's different. Women are born interesting.”

“The great events in our lives are physical. Childbirth. Sex. Combat. Death. Not poetry, or music, or the thoughts of great men will flash across the transom of our minds at the moment of dying. We will remember only the moments when we felt the fibers of our body sing. Bloodily. Messily. Ecstatically.”

“I believe that there is luminosity hiding in the shadow of the mundane. And things that hover at the periphery of our vision. If that’s magic, then I believe in it.”

“If wishes were free, pigs would fly.”

“But don't pull me down or strangle me," he replied: for the Misses Eshton were clinging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast white wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail.”