“Dilemma of civilized man; body mobilized, but danger obscure.”

“Nothing. Heart pounding. Respiration and all somatic processes including all manner of diencephalic-controlled autonomic responses to crises: adrenalin greater heartbeat pulse rate glands pouring throat paralysed eyes staring bowels loose et al. Stomach queasy and sex instinct suppressed. And yet nothing to see nothing for body to do. Run All in preparation for panic flight. But where to and why Mr Tagomi asked himself. No clue. Therefore impossible. Dilemma of civilized man body mobilized but danger obscure.”

“On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components.”

“In a civil war… every side is wrong. It’s hopeless to try to untangle it. Everyone is a victim.”

“The most dangerous kind of person... is one who is afraid of his own shadow.”

“Why does a man cry? he wondered. Not like a woman; not for that. Not for sentiment. A man cries over the loss of something, something alive. A man can cry over a sick animal that he knows won't make it. The death of a child: a man can cry for that. But not because things are sad.A man, he thought, cries not for the future or the past but for the present.”

“If the last to know he’s an addict is the addict, then maybe the last to know when a man means what he says is the man himself, he reflected.”