“You never see a lion crucifyng another lion. You never see a bear just randomly murdering salmon for anything besides food; bears don't form armies, invade rivers, tear the heads off male salmon, rape the female salmon, and enslave their salmon children.It is finished, to Kugel, sounded a hell of a lot like Fuck all of you motherfuckers.”

“Hiding from genocide inside a Jew's attic, thought Kugel, is like hiding from a lion inside a gazelle.”

“What a world, thought Kugel; whoever you were, wherever you were, whatever time of the day or night, you could open your back door and call out I know you're out there motherfucker, and nine times out of ten you'd be right.”

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

“Kugel set off, the wind in what would have been, some years ago, his hair.”

“I'm down here, trying to live, trying to deal with the real world, while you're hiding, bitching, fucking everyone's shit up but your own, so shut up, just shut the fuck up. Thirty-two million copies, thirty-two million copies, that's what you got for your pain. What do I get for mine? What does anyone get for theirs? Nothing, not a fucking thing, they get another goddamned day of it and another goddamned day of it after that, so just shut up, will you? Will you just shut up?”

“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.”