Could be. I’m a pretty dangerous dude when I’m cornered.” “Yeah,” said the voice from under the table, “you go to pieces so fast people get hit by the shrapnel.

Dirk was, for one of the few times in a life of exuberantly prolific loquacity, wordless.

Grown men, he told himself, in flat contradiction of centuries of accumulated evidence about the way grown men behave, do not behave like this.

'The difficulty with this conversation,' said Arthur after a sort of pondering look had crawled slowly across his face like a mountaineer negotiating a tricky outcrop, 'is that it's very different from most of the ones I've had of late. Which, as I explained, have mostly been with trees.'

There's nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, "Well, okay, I'm going to do something of high artistic worth." It's funny.

Did I do anything wrong today," he said, "or has the world always been like this and I've been too wrapped up in myself to notice?

Who is this god person anyway?