Nothing [the demon] could think up was half as bad as the stuff [people] thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into their design somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse.

The thin girl was gulping down one of Richard's bananas in what was, Richard reflected, the least erotic display of banana-eating he had ever seen.

They all do the same things. They may think their sins are original, but for the most part they are petty and repetitive.

Children, as I have said, use back ways and hidden paths, while adults take roads and official paths.

In ten years time I’ll be… (dead) sixty.

I guess it's just another one of life's little mysteries." "I'm tired of mysteries." "Yeah? I think they add a kind of zest to the world. Like salt in a stew.

And, selfish and scared, I wonder how much more he has to give.