“The cicadas, as if they were wired on the same circuit, suddenly filled the garden with a loud burst of celebration.”

“My name is Herbert Badgery. I am a hundred and thirty-nine years old and something of a celebrity. They come and look at me and wonder how I do it. There are weeks when I wonder the same, whole stretches of terrible time. It is hard to believe you can feel so bad and still not die.”

“after we ate we was silent on our blankets looking out across the mighty Great Divide I never seen this country before it were like a fairy story landscape the clear and windy skies was filled with diamonds the jagged black outlines of the ranges were a panorama.You're going to ride a horse across all that.I know.He laughed and he were right I knew nothing of what lay ahead.See that there he pointed. That is called the Crosscut Saw and that one is Mount Speculation and yonder is Mount Buggery and that other is Mount Despair did you know that?No Harry.You will and you'll be sorry.”

“7. Some Theories that Arose at the Time 1. The world is merely a dream dreamt by god who is waking after a long sleep. When he is properly awake the world will disappear completely. When the world disappears we will disappear with it and be happy. 2. The world has become sensitive to light. In the same way that prolonged use of, say, penicillin can suddenly result in a dangerous allergy, prolonged exposure of the world to the sun has made it sensitive to light. The advocates of this theory could be seen bustling through the city crowds in their long, hooded black robes. 3. The fact that the world is disappearing has been caused by the sloppy work of the Cartographers and the census takers. Those who filled out their census forms incorrectly would lose those items they had neglected to describe. People overlooked in the census by impatient officials would also disappear. A strong pressure group demanded that a new census be taken quickly before matters got worse.- From the story "Do You Love Me?”

“To know you will be lonely is not the same as being lonely.”

“The hydrangeas are clipped for the winter and there is a gardener with rum on his breath (and odd socks on his feet) who offers to show you the scars on his back, the droppings of a wallaby, the scratchings of a bandicoot or a leech which he will pull inside out with the aid of a twig- "T'only way to kill'un, missus.”

“He were still smiling but his voice were hard as a spoon rattling in a metal cup.”