“Down the hall I could hear the thud of basketballs, the blare of the time-out horn, and the shouts of the crowd as the sports-beasts fought: Lisbon Greyhounds versus Jay Tigers.Who can know when life hangs in the balance, or why?”

“Rightly tired of the pain İ hear and feel, boss... where we's comin from or goin to or why... If İ could end it, İ would. But İ can't.”

“I know life is hard, I think everyone knows that in their hearts, but why dos it have to be cruel, as well? Why does it have to bite?”

“OH SHIT! I BELIEVE IN ALL OF THOSE THINGS!" he shouted, and it was true: even at eleven he had observed that things turned out right a ridiculous amount of the time.”

“The crowd could not know that they were cheering but somehow they did, somehow they understood that the circle between death-worship and death-wish had been completed for another year and the crowd went completely loopy, convulsing itself in greater and greater paroxysms.”

“Men! She could not understand why so many women feared them. Hadn't the gods made them with the most vulnerable part of their guts hanging right out of their bodies, like a misplaced bit of bowel? Kick them there and they curled up like snails. Caress them there and their brains melted.”

“In case you didn't know it, friend, the Weather Bureau can post tornado warnings, but when it comes to telling exactly when and where they'll touch down, they don't know fuck-all.”