“But tonight, because Rome had fallen and Felix was dead, because of Valerius’s shame, the empty hut seemed horribly lonely, and there was a small aching need in him for somebody to notice, even if they were not glad, that he had come home.”

“Sam's Place had never felt so empty. He suspected the emptiness was not in the old Quonset hut; it was in him. There was nothing in him now, nothing but the great emptiness of death, which he seemed to carry with him like a virus.”

“It was just that she had the need to tell him something honest, something honest and unhappy, because cheerful lies tonight were too depressing and too sharp, turning in on her like pins”

“She cried because she'd had such high, high hopes about the Wheelers tonight and now she was terribly, terribly, terribly disappointed. She cried because she was fifty six years old and her feet were ugly and swollen and horrible; she cried because none of the girls had liked her at school and none of the boys had liked her later; she cried because Howard Givings was the only man who'd ever asked her to marry him, and because she'd done it, and because her only child was insane.”

“I started wondering if God really existed. The world seemed too empty and lonely for there to be a God in it. But I figured he must exist because I kept blaming everything on him.”

“The place between his thighs seemed to him as round and full as a small Virginia smoked ham. He had to get rid of it, before anyone else noticed it.”