“It really seems to me that in the midst of great tragedy, there is always the horrible possibility that something terribly funny will happen.”

“The surveillance, he thought, essentially should be maintained. And, if possible, by me. I should always be watching, watching and figuring out, even if I never do anything about what I see; even if I just sit there and observe silently, not seen: that is important, that I as a watcher of all that happens should be at my place.”

“He sat watching the people go by, wondering how a thing of this sort could have come about, I must have let myself get mixed up in something horrible, he thought ... Probably she's the one who did it; I have no control of myself or anything that's happened. So now I'm waking up. I'm awake, he thought ... I've been destroyed and now that I'm awake all I can do is realize it ... The shock of getting up there and telling that account made me see. Mixture of lies and bits of truth. Woven together. Unable to see where each starts.”

“Fear can make you do more wrong than hate or jealousy... fear makes you always, always hold something back.”

“Can anyone alter fate? All of us combined... or one great figure... or someone strategically placed, who happens to be in the right spot. Chance. Accident. And our lives, our world, hanging on it.”

“Truth, she thought. As terrible as death. But harder to find.”

“Madness, he thought. The ultimate horror for our para­noid culture: vicious unseen mechanical entities that flit at the edges of our vision, that can go anywhere, that are in our very midst.”