You see the lighted windows and what you want to think is that there may be many interesting stories behind them, but what you know is that really there are just dull, dull souls, mere consumers of food, who think their instincts are emotions and their tiny lives of more account than a whisper of wind.

He thought about how it might be to be, say, a fox confronted with an angry sheep. A sheep moreover, that could afford to employ wolves.

Cake is not the issue here.

Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living.

"Right!" "Right!" "You can get there!" "I can get there!" "You're a natural at counting to two!" "I'm a nat'ral at counting to two!" "If you can count to two, you can count to anything!" "If I can count to two, I can count to anything!" "And then the world is your mollusc!" "My mollusc! What's a mollusc?

Where's the pleasure in bein' the winner if the loser ain't alive to know they've lost?