“Vox populi, vox Humbug.”

“Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.”

“These self-appointed deacons in the Church of Latter-Day American Literature seem to regard generosity (of words) with suspicion, texture with dislike, and any broad literary stroke with outright hate. The result is a strange and arid literary climate where a meaningless little fingernail paring like Nicholson Baker's Vox becomes an object of fascinated debate and dissection, and a truly ambitious American novel like Matthew's Heart of the Country is all but ignored.”

“We must have humbug, we all like humbug, we couldn't get on without humbug.”

“Salus populi suprema est lex [the good of the people is the chief law].”

“If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug," he said, aloud, as he went to bed, "she is lost. But I shall save her."He put out his lamp and felt a need to insult Erik in the dark. Thrice over, he shouted:"Humbug!...Humbug!...Humbug!”