“No visiting angel, or explorer from another planet could have guessed that this bland orb teemed with vermin, with world-mastering, self-torturing, incipiently angelic beasts.”

“If an ancient man saw planes two thousand years ago He would've thought they were birds Or angels from another world Or messengers from other planets.”

“What a fine affair it would be if we could flit across the Atlantic as they say the angels do from planet to planet.”

“Man is neither angel nor beast, and unhappily whoever wants to act the angel, acts the beast.”

“For the world is broken, sundered, busted down the middle, self ripped from self and man pasted back together as mythical monster, half angel, half beast, but no man...Some day a man will walk into my office as a ghost or beast or ghost-beast and walk out as a man, which is to say sovereign wanderer, lordly exile, worker and waiter and watcher.”

“Nobody's perfect. We're all just one step up from the beasts and one step down from the angels.”