Luck, like a Russian car, generally only works if you push it.

Human beings can get used to virtually anything, given plenty of time and no choice in the matter whatsoever.

Poetry is one of the few nasty childhood habits I've managed to grow out of

There is that within a man that drives him ever onwards, just as the power of the seasons drives the roots of flowers into the hard earth; and so he decided, against his better judgment, to open his eyes and find out what was going to happen to him next.

Lawyers are predators in grey worsted

New technology is useful, but it's inefficient and ugly; it knows it'll be obsolete by lunchtime tomorrow, so it has no incentive to be anything else

Not only had he lost the only girl he'd ever loved, he'd lost her in duplicate, like some heartbroken but highly efficient civil servant.