The most useful thing about art is it's uselessness.

There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for.

Sometimes one gets the feeling that life still thinks it's living in Paris in the '30s.

Modern Romans insisted that there was only one god, a notion that struck Alobar as comically simplistic. Worse, this Semitic deity was reputed to be jealous (what was there to be jealous of if there were no other gods?), vindictive, and altogether foul-tempered. If you didn't serve the nasty fellow, the Romans would burn your house down. If you did serve him, you were called a Christian and got to burn other people's houses down.

As expected, you get his machine. Someday, even the "call of nature" will be answered by a machine.

Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don't be surprised at what inappropriate port you find yourself docked.

Louisiana in September was like an obscene phone call from nature. The air - moist, sultry, secretive, and far from fresh - felt as if it were being exhaled into one's face. Sometimes it even sounded like heavy breathing.