“Nine, now eight. Are the rest of you out there?”

“This is nine! Nine! This is nine! Nine! This is ten! Ten! We have killed your friends! Every friend is now dead! This is six! Six!"[...]"Eighteen! This is now eighteen! Take cover when the siren sounds! This is four! Four!"[...]"Five! This is five! Ignore the siren! Even if you leave this room, you can never leave this room! Eight! This is eight!"[...]"Six!' the phone screamed. 'Six, this is six, this is goddam fucking SIX!”

“Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant”

“A sixty - eight, he wants you to go down on him but he won't return the favor. It would be sixty-nine but he owes you one.”

“Isabel observed an etiquette of the telephone: a call before eight in the morning was an emergency; between eight and nine it was an intrusion; thereafter calls could be made until ten in the evening, although anything after nine-thirty required an apology for the disturbance. After ten one was into emergency time again.”

“Fifteen!" Dess's distant cry reached him. "Where the hell are you, Rex? Ten. You're-an-idiot-nine, get-back-here-eight, you-dimwit-seven...”