He smoked a cigarette, standing in the dark and listening to her undress. She made sea sounds; something flapped like a sail; there was the creak of ropes; then he heard the wave-against-a-wharf smack of rubber on flesh. Her call for him to hurry was a sea-moan, and when he lay beside her, she heaved, tidal, moon-driven.

It's solitary drinking that makes drunkards.

He thought of how calm he was. His calm was so perfect that he could not destroy it even by being conscious of it.

Numbers constitute the only universal language.

Prayers for the condemned man will be offered on an adding machine. Numbers constitute the only universal language.

Crowds of people moved through the streets with a dream-like violence.

He read it for the same reason an animal tears at a wounded foot: to hurt the pain.