The myth that everyone once read great literature is just a myth.

Don't eat anything you aren't prepared to kill. Don't kill anything you aren't prepared to eat.

Cleverness is a quality a man likes to have in his wife as long as she is some distance away from him. Up close, he'll take kindness any day of the week, if there's nothing more alluring to be had.

Creating some god for one's inspirations was always a good way to avoid accusations of pride should the scheme succeed, as well as the blame if did not.

All it takes,” said Crake, “is the elimination of one generation. One generation of anything. Beetles, trees, microbes, scientists, speakers of French, whatever. Break the link in time between one generation and the next, and it’s game over forever.

I wanted to forget the past, but it refused to forget me; it waited for sleep, then cornered me.

The truth, it seems, is not just what you find when you open a door: it is itself a door, which the poet is always on the verge of going through.