Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em.

Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god's idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs.

The conversation of human beings seldom interested him, but it crossed his mind that the males and females always got along best when neither actually listened fully to what the other one was saying.

...and the funny thing was that people who weren't entirely certain they were right always argued much louder than other people, as if the main person they were trying to convince were themselves.

Cats don't hunt seals. They would if they knew what they were and where to find them. But they don't, so that's all right.

Corporal Nobbs had been disqualified from the human race for shoving

There can be no better grounding for a lifetime as an author than to see humanity in all its various guises through the lens of the reporter for the town.