“He liked the fact that Venice had no cars. It made the city human. The streets were like veins, he thought, and the people were the blood, circulating everywhere.”

“As the avenues and streets of a city are nothing less than its arteries and veins, we may well ask what doctor would venture to promise bodily health if he knew that the blood circulation was steadily growing more congested!”

“There were people everywhere on the city street, but the stranger could not have been more alone if it were empty.”

“Within minutes, mounds of concrete and earth were stacked and piled. The streets were ruptured veins. Blood streamed till it was dried on the road, and the bodies were stuck there, like driftwood after the flood.”

“They were all machines, he thought, just like La Mettrie had said in L'Homme Machine all those years ago. So he, Orphan, was a machine of flesh and blood, and Lucy, now, was made of something else, more complex perhaps- but they were the same and...They were in love.Sometimes that was enough.”

“Everybody looked at Sully suspiciously. A rumor that he had burned up in the blaze had been circulating, and people had quickly adjusted to the idea of profound human tragedy. They were reluctant to give it up, Sully could tell. He smiled apologetically at the crowd.”