The Law is a grim, unsmiling thing. Not Justice, though. Justice is witty and whimsical and kind and caring.

In foreign countries they fear baldness. They are so rich in foreign countries, they can afford to fear all kinds of silly things.

Hahnji, mister, you must be patient. Before you can name that corner, our future must become past.

There didn't seem to her any harm in it, and the make-believe was so comforting.

What folly made young people, even those in middle age, think they were immortal? How much better, their lives, if they could remember the end. Carrying your death with you every day would make it hard to waste time on unkindness and anger and bitterness, on anything petty. That was the secret: remembering your dying time, in order to keep the stupid and the ugly out of your living time.

Birth and death - what could be more monstrous than that? We like to deceive ourselves and call it wondrous and beautiful and majestic, but it's freakish, let's face it.

Distance was a dangerous thing, she knew. Distance changed people.