“He gains the farthest reaches where the ache of our most ancient absence lay.”

“May our afflictions be few, but may we learn not to squander them.”

“I turned and beheld seven rows of plasma screens, each bearing seven vivid scenes, each flickering, each pulsing with a light revealing distant terrors, conflagrations, sufferings - and all thereby brought so close, and all thereby kept far away.”

“How many millions there are who don't want to go to Hell, but they don't want to get off the road to Hell.”

“Seeking out people with different views, different perspectives, different ideas is often challenging, because it requires us to set aside judgment and open our minds. But we have to remind ourselves that to get beyond where we are, where I believe most of us are, we would all be be well served to choose our music carefully, to stop talking and listen to one another.”

“He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American - that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games.”

“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...”