“Pete had always been a compulsive organizer, but the man himself was so sociable and friendly that he could seem absentminded at times. Nick was the diametric opposite; his mind was completely organized, but his physical environment was always in chaos.”

“Glorious life ending. There must have been a moment when his son had gasped for air, the last time, as Jesus must. But as Jesus had risen, he wanted his son to rise up, organs and spirit and mind intact, and everything to be as it had been not so long ago.”

“And always, if he had a little money, a man could get drunk. The hard edges gone, and the warmth. Then there was no loneliness, for a man could people his brain with friends, and he could find his enemies and destroy them.”

“Man aspires to govern nature, but the more one studies ecology, themore absurd it seems to speak of any one feature of an organism, or ofan organism/environment field, as governing or ruling others.”

“Being Adam Parrish was a complicated thing, a wonder of muscles and organs, synapses and nerves. He was a miracle of moving parts, a study in survival. The most important thing to Adam Parrish, though, had always been free will, the ability to be his own master.This was the important thing.It had always been the important thing. This was what it was to be Adam.”

“...he looked so strange and absentminded; quite obviously he had just been reading a book, one could tell that from the expression in his eyes, from his hair, from the abstracted way in which he managed his hands.”