“Beneath the quiet equanimity, the simmering obsessions.”

“...occasionally I like carrying raw steel to remind myself of an important lesson.The blade's an extension of the hand, the agent--no pun intended--of my will. Most people understand this immediately of edged weapons...The trick--and few are subtle or sophisticated enough to master it--is to see that this is equally true... by implication, of all machines.”

“- ... It causeth unease. - Oh it doth, doth it?”

“Be hole, be dust, be dream, be wind/Be night, be dark, be wish, be mind,/Now slip, now slide, now move unseen,/Above, beneath, betwixt, between.”

“What should I believe? thought Shadow, and the voice came back to him from somewhere deep beneath the world, in a bass rumble: Believe everything.”

“My people, we stay indoors. We have keyboards. We have darkness. It's quiet.”

“The fallen autumn leaves were slick beneath Bod's feet, and the mists blurred the edges of the world. Nothing was as clean-cut as he had thought it, a few minutes before.”