“So desperate was Kugel for things to turn out for the best, proclaimed Professor Jove, that he couldn't stop worrying about the worst. Hope, said Professor Jove, was Solomon Kugel's greatest failing.”

“We are rational creatures, Professor Jove explained; hope is irrational. We thus set ourselves up for one dispiriting fall after the next. Anger and depression are not diseases or dysfunctions or anomalies; they are perfectly rational responses to the myriad avoidable disappointments that begin in a thoroughly irrational hope.”

“The Kugels, Kugel hated to admit, might just have to, in the event of genocide, rely on the kindness of strangers.Mother used to say: I can name six million people who relied on the kindness of strangers.”

“Pleasant it is for the Little Tin GodsWhen great Jove nods;But Little Tin Gods make their little mistakesIn missing the hour when great Jove wakes.”

“Kugel was a firm believer that death was not always a bad thing - that life often reached such levels of crapitude that dying was preferable to living.”

“I kind of like it up here, Kugel said. It's got a certain fatalistic charm, a certain je ne sais fucked.”