“Om helps those who help one another.”

“The phrase 'Someone ought to do something' was not, by itself, a helpful one. People who used it never added the rider 'and that someone is me'.”

“And it came to pass that in that time the Great God Om spake unto Brutha, the Chosen One: ‘Psst!’”

“The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different. For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.”

“Quite possibly, in those days, when his temper was more liable to explode into a spot of boots and fists, he might have helped them, just to get it out of his system. But as it happened the wheel turned the other way, toward the thought that two geezers kicking an old cove who was lying on the ground groaning were pox-ridden mucksnipes. So he had waded in and laid it on with a trowel...”

“Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.”

“The point I’m making,” said Yo-Less, “is that you’ve got to help your friends, right?” He turned to Johnny. ”Now, personally, I think you’re very nearly totally disturbed and suffering from psychosomatica and hearing voices and seeing delusions,” he said “and probably ought to be locked up in one of those white jackets with the stylish long sleeves. But that doesn’t matter, ’cause we’re friends.”