“Synchronize watches at oh six hundred' says the infantry captain, and each of his huddled lieutenants finds respite from fear in the act of bringing two tiny pointers into jeweled alignment while tons of heavy artillery go fluttering overhead: the prosaic, civilian-looking dial of the watch has restored, however briefly, an illusion of personal control. Good, it counsels, looking tidily up from the hairs and veins of each terribly vulnerable wrist; fine: so far, everything's happening right on time.”

“From the slope of Haleakala, the Old Broad watched the activity in the channel with a two-hundred-power celestial telescope and a pair of "big eyes" binoculars that looked like stereo bazookas on precision mounts that were anchored into a ton of concrete.”

“They're headed for some place called the Great Barrier.""A place that doesn't exist." Liv was shaking her head, checking the rotating dials on her wrist.Link pushed away his plate, still covered with food. "So let me get this straight. We're gonna go down into theTunnels and find this moon outta time with Liv's fancy watch?""Selenometer." Liv didn't look up from copying numbers from the dials into her red notebook.”

“When I was in Piazza di Spagna, in Rome, I watched (along with others) how many locals came to drink water from the fountain there. The people beside me said to each other "Oh my goodness, how disgusting, people just drink water from anywhere," while the whole time, I was thinking "Oh my goodness, how wonderful, people can drink water from anywhere." We can be in the exact same place, looking at the exact same thing, but see that thing in a completely different way. You can go around the world, and go to all the beautiful places, but never be happy, because happiness is something that you bring inside of you, it is not where you are or what you are looking at, but it is how you are and how you look at.”

“You're dying right now. Right this minute.' He looked at his watch, said, 'Right this second,' then tapped it with his finger. 'See there? That second passed. It's gone. Not gonna come again. And while I'm talking to you, every second I'm talking, a second is passing. Gone. Count them up. Count them down. They're gone. Each one bringing you closer to your dying time.”

“I enjoyed watching good-looking idiots looking at each other. A great spectator sport.”