“Not bad, not bad at all," Diotallevi said. "To arrive at the truth through the painstaking reconstruction of a false text.”

“All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.”

“We'll have to consult Aglie. I doubt that even he knows all these organizations.""Want to bet? They're his daily bread. But we can put him to the test. Let's add a sect that doesn't exist. Founded recently."I recalled the curious question of De Angelis, whether I had ever heard of the Tres. And I said: "Tres.""What's that?" Belbo asked."If it's an acrostic, there has to be a subtext," Diotallevi said. "Otherwise my rabbis would not have been able to use the notarikon. Lets see... Templi Resurgentes Equites Synarchici. That suit you?"We liked the name, and put it at the bottom of the list."With all these conventicles, inventing one more was no mean trick," Diotallevi said in a sudden fit of vanity.”

“I was becoming addicted, Diotallevi was becoming corrupted, Belbo was becoming converted. But all of us were slowly losing that intellectual light that allows you always to tell the similar from the identical, the metaphorical from the real.”

“The Massalians are not dualists but monarchians, and they have dealings with the infernal powers, and in fact some texts call them Borborites, from borboros, filth, because of the unspeakable things they do.""What do they do?""The usual unspeakable things. Men and women hold in the palm of their hand, and raise to heaven, their own ignominy, namely, sperm or menstruum, then eat it, calling it the Body of Christ. And if by chance a woman is made pregnant, at the opportune moment they stick a hand into her womb, pull out the embryo, throw it into a mortar, mix in some honey and pepper, and gobble it up.""How revolting, honey and pepper!" Diotallevi said.”

“We'll have to see," Belbo said. He rummaged in his drawer and took out some sheets of paper. "Potio-section..." He looked at me, saw my bewilderment. "Potio-section, as everybody knows, of course, is the art of slicing soup. No, no," he said to Diotallevi. "It's not the department, it's a subject, like Mechanical Avunculogratulation or Pylocatabasis. They all under the same heading of Tetrapyloctomy.""What's tetra...?" I asked."The art of splitting hairs four ways. This is the department of useless techniques. Mechanical Avunculogratulation, for example, is how to build machines for greeting uncles. We're not sure, though, if Pylocatabasis belongs, since it's the art of being saved by a hair. Somehow that doesn't seem completely useless.""All right, gentlemen," I said, "I give up. What are you two talking about?""Well, Diotallevi and I are planning a reform in higher education. A School of Comparative Irrelevance, where useless or impossible courses are given. The school's main is to turn out scholars capable of endlessly increasing the number of unnecessary subjects.”

“But this lump does not absolve me, because I got it through heedlessness, not though courage. I run my tongue over my lip and what do I do? I write. But bad literature brings no redemption.”