“I would have liked to say, "I'm a doctor," to those who asked me what I did, doctors being the current purveyors of magic and miracle. But I'm sure we would have had a bus accident around the next bend, and with all eyes fixed on me I would have to explain, amidst the crying and moaning of victims...I would have to confess that as a matter of fact it was a bachelor's in philosophy; next, to the shouts of what meaning such a bloody tragedy could have, I would have to admit that I had hardly touched kierkegaard; and so on.”

“Well as much as I'm sure the people next door who are pretending they aren't looking at me would like to hear what I have to say, I'd rather say it to just you.”

“What I could really use is an older man. A mentor. One who could tell me how things fit together.He would have asked me to do chores that I felt were meaningless. I would have been impatient and protested, but done them nonetheless. And eventually, after several months of hard labour, I would have realised that there was a deeper meaning behind it all, and that the master had a cunning plan all the time.”

“The Doc. Virginia and Simon had told me that Dr. Dale was my doctor. I have a fuzzy recollection of walking up to some doctor-looking person and being totally absorbed by his gold tie clip. I suspected it was the button to end the world so I didn't touch it. I'm pretty sure it was Dr. Dale. I don't know who else would be so tasteless as to walk around a mental hospital wearing the button to end the world.”

“If you would ask me what to study I would say, yourselves; and when you well had studied them, and then would ask me what to study next, I would reply, yourselves.”

“Have you talked to her?""What would you have had me say Bastien? Oh, I'm sorry Inez. I didn't mean to bite you, my fangs slipped.”