“What if the need to have a hard time is built into human nature?”

“But had I not cut the cord? and now was I seeing what happens when there is no gravity. There is indeed nothing, nothing; you are just falling. My father had said once (or was it you?) that the only emotions worth having are ecstasy and despair. I thought - Well yes, but there is also a terror at this nothing.”

“The conceit of literary intellectuals is to imagine that other people don't have ideas so that they can assume a superior status by having their own...”

“It is very difficult to love people who are good to us: it is easier to imagine we are loving people we can condescend to.”

“You have made Commerce a god that weighs on humanity like a twenty-four-pound boil on a man's back (117-118)”

“Many & most moments go by with us hardly aware of their passage. But love & hate & fear cause time to snag you, to drag you down like a spider's web holding fast to a doomed fly's wings. And when you're caught like that you're aware of every moment & movement & nuance.”

“There are times in your life when things line up and Fate takes a hand in your future," Ptolemy remembered Coydog saying. "When that happens, you got to move quick and take advantage of the sitchiation or you'll never know what might have been.""How do I know when it's time to move quick?" L'il Pea asked."When somethin' big happens and then somethin' else come up.”