“Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.”

“It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.”

“Men have worked as essentially shop keepers and store clerks for a lot longer than they have worked on assembly lines. There have been waiters forever. Lawyers are the world's second oldest profession. Teaching was a male-only profession for centuries. The idea that men are and ought to be unreflective, grunting, two-fisted louts is a class thing, not a gender thing, and it is imposed upon working class men by a system that needs them to be beasts of burden.”

“Your Plan and the stuff that comes out of my asshole bear a suspicious resemblance to each other.”

“Well, first you have to be very, very funny. I have realized that it is essential for a boy to be funny. Otherwise, what is the point in a boy?”

“By the way, were we to find life-forms on Venus, we would probably call them Venutians, just as people from Mars would be Martians. But according to rules of Latin genitives, to be “of Venus” ought to make you a Venereal. Unfortunately, medical doctors reached that word before astronomers did. Can’t blame them, I suppose. Venereal disease long predates astronomy, which itself stands as only the second oldest profession.”