For seven days she lay in bed looking sullenly at the ceiling as though resenting the death she had cultivated for so many years. Like some people who cannot vomit despite horrible nausea, she lay there unable to die, resisting death as she had resisted life, frozen with resentment of process and change.

Black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. Casual curses are the most effective.

After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it.

The Nova Mob doesn't have motives, as we understand motives. "Sex is profoundly distasteful to a being of my mineral origin," as a leader of the Nova Mob, Mr. Bradley-Mr. Martin, said on one occasion.

Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination.

Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts.

If you build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.