“Anything electronic seemed fundamentally magical to Shadow, and liable to evaporate at any moment.”

“Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom.”

“It was crime at its purest, in which empathy, that most fundamental aspect of human morality, evaporated and another being became only a target for untamed fantasy.”

“it seemed to him as if he were beholding in a magic panorama a future where he himself was sliding into that pleasureless yielding to the small solicitations of circumstance, which is a commoner history of perdition than any single momentous bargain.”

“In any case, muffins that are only imaginary aren't liable to get stuck.”

“Unsure how to answer, I took another grape. Time was no problem for me, but I wasn't eager to hear the long life story of a dwarf. And besides, this was a dream. It could evaporate any moment.”