“Hey, you have a soft spot for the mortal ones. A fascination with all the charming things they do while listening to the tick, tick, tick of their own looming lives. That's fine, that's good, everyone needs a hobby.”

“Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick, Tick, tick, tick, what little iambics, While Homer and Whitman roared in the pines.”

“There is certainly a universal and unconscious propensity to impose a rhythm even when one hears a series of identical sounds at constant intervals... We tend to hear the sound of a digital clock, for example, as "tick-tock, tick-tock" - even though it is actually "tick tick, tick tick.”

“The ticking insideOn the inside of him there’s a wire fenceAnd past the wire fence is a dog And past the dog are thieves And past the thievesIs a gang of bad dreamsAnd past the dreamsIf you can get past the dreams Are the things that make him tick Tick, tick, tick(Page 54).”

“It is a subliminal thing. It is the tick of a clock that has ticked so long one no longer notices. Something is in a room when a man lives in it. Something is not in the room when a man is dead in it.”

“Tick, tock,” whispers Wiress. I guide her in front of me and get her to lie down, stroking her arm to soothe her. She drifts off, stirring restlessly, occasionally sighing out her phrase. “Tick, tock.” “Tick, tock,” I agree softly. “It’s time for bed. Tick, tock. Go to sleep.”