The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest.

Our life seems cursed to be a wiggle merely, and a wandering without end.

I had been chipping at the world idly, and had by accident uncovered vast and labyrinthine further worlds within it.

Johnston's books are beautifully written and among the funniest I have ever read.

You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: There is nothing there...You feel the world's word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused note everywhere the same. This is it: This hum is the silence.

Just once I wanted a task that required all the joy I had. Day after day I had noticed that if I waited long enough, my strong unexpressed joy would dwindle and dissipate inside me, like a fire subsiding . . . . Just this once I wanted to let it rip.

I breathed the air of history all unaware, and walked oblivious through its littered layers.