“Oskar knew people would catch that trolley anyhow. Doors closed, no stops, machine guns on walls—it wouldn’t matter. Humans were incurable that way. People would try to get off it, someone’s loyal Polish maid with a parcel of sausage. And people would try to get on, some fast-moving athletic young man like Leopold Pfefferberg with a pocketful of diamonds or Occupation złoty or a message in code for the partisans. People responded to any slim chance, even if it was an outside one, its doors locked shut, moving fast between mute walls.”

“... we met with more closed doors than open ones -- and the people who answered our knocks were invariably older. Young people didn't aswner the door to strangers, who would undoubtedly be trying to sell something, any more than they would answer the telephone to telemarketers once Caller ID came along. The only people we encountered going door-to-door were the ones old enough to remember when that's the way the world worked.”

“Most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitate to get in the way if you're moving.”

“I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn't get--and never would get.”

“The world would become better offIf people tried to become better.And people would become betterIf they stopped trying to become better off.”

“He thought moving to a small town would allow him to find a way to get along to some extent but people were just plain idiots.”