“Ooooh," Kate groans, Kate herself now. "I'm so afraid." "I know." "What am I going to do?" "You mean right now?" "Yes.""We'll go to my car. Then we'll drive down to the French Market and get some coffee. Then we'll go home." "Is everything going to be all right?" "Yes." "Tell me. Say it." "Everything is going to be all right.”

“Yes, I'm too mad to punish you right now. We'll talk about it when we get home. Go brush your teeth, comb your hair, put on dry clothes, and get the guns. We're going to Wal-Mart.”

“It will be all right, Tom. Wherever we go now, whatever becomes of us, we'll be together, and it will all be all right.”

“I must go now.""Stay up the night with me! We'll go to the fish market. There are great noble monsters packed in ice. There are turtles, live ones, for famous restaurants. We'll rescue one and write messages on his shell and put him in the sea, Shell, seashell. Or we'll go to the vegetable market. They've got red-net bags full of onions that look like huge pearls. Or we'll go down to Forty-second Street and see the movies and buy a mimeographed bulletin of jobs we can get in Pakistan --""I work tomorrow.""Which has nothing to do with it.""But I'd better go now.""I know this is unheard in America, but I'll walk you home.""I live on Twenty-third Street.""Exactly what I'd hoped. It's over a hundred blocks.”

“Simpletons! Yes, yes! I'm a simpleton! Are you a simpleton? We'll build a town and we'll name it Simple Town, because by then all the smart bastards that caused all this, they'll be dead! Simpletons! Let's go! This ought to show 'em! Anybody here not a simpleton? Get the bastard, if there is!”

“I punched to line. "Yes? What?""Norville. It's Cormac. If you don't change the subject right now, I'm going to have to go over there and have a word with you.”