“Just because the world often seemed to reward ugliness was no excuse to give up on beauty.”

“The world had edges but you couldnt see them going, only when you were trying to come back.”

“There was a worm addicted to grape leaves, she continued, and suddenly it woke up. Call it a miracle, whatever, something woke it up and it wasnt a worm anymore. It was the whole vineyard, and the ...”

“...the beginning and the end of time. These are the same thing, as everybody knows who came into this universe via a wormhole.”

“A girl in a crown of stars was coming toward him, but before she could see who he was he slipped through his curtains of flesh.”

“Apes or human we all made the same mistake, tempted by shifting leaves or the smell of sex, by music or a ripe banana.”

“Television's perfect. You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back and drain your mind of all thought. And there you are wat...”

“Some people will bring up evolutionary biology and apes, how female apes bow to male apes - that sort of thing. But the point is this: we are not apes. Apes also live in trees and eat earthworms. W...”

“But once an original book has been written-and no more than one or two appear in a century-men of letters imitate it, in other words, they copy it so that hundreds of thousands of books are publish...”

“Scenery is fine -but human nature is finer”

“As for me, I have a choice between honoring that dark life I've seen so many years moving in the junipers, or of walking away and going on with my own human busyness. There is always that choice fo...”

“Nature allows one kind to kill another, it's part of the law ... you wonder if man might not be the most savage of all creatures. He's among the few that preys on nearly every other being, that con...”