“The old, slow, creaking descriptions are a thing of the past; today the rule is brevity - but every word must be supercharged, high-voltage.”

“They are in contact on a high-voltage wavelength of hate...”

“I refilled the wineglass and took it with me for a nice long bubble bath, where I settled in with Ambrose's guide for low-voltage outdoor lighting.It wasn't thrilling bubble-bath reading material, but I was impressed by his imagination. You wouldn't know from the writing that he'd never actually seen a low-voltage lighting system in someone's yard, much less installed one himself. His descriptions were clear, colorful, and written with authority. The inscription wasn't bad either: To Natalie, You're a high-voltage system as far as I am concerned.”

“Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description.”

“Hot punch is a pleasant thing, gentlemen---an extremely pleasant thing under any circumstances---but in that snug old parlour, before the roaring fire, with the wind blowing outside till every timber in the old house creaked again, Tom Smart found it perfectly delightful.”

“A description of Zaira as it is today should contain all Zaira’s past. The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.”