"Perhaps I am the turtle, able to live simply anywhere, even underwater for short periods, with my home on my back"

"Everything about life is a joke. Don’t you know that?"

"I had always had trouble ending short stories in ways that would satisfy a general public. In real life, as during a rerun following a timequake, people don’t change, don’t learn anything from their mistakes, and don’t apologize."

"People have been hearing fantastic stories since time began. The problem is, they think life is supposed to be like the stories."

"Satan couldn’t undo anything God had done. She could at least try to make existence for His little toys less painful. She could see what He couldn’t: To be alive was to be either bored or scared stiff. So she filled an apple with all sorts of ideas that might at least relieve the boredom, such as rules for games with cards and dice, and how to fuck, and recipes for beer and wine and whiskey, and pictures of different plants that were smokable, and so on. And instructions on how to make music and sing and dance real crazy, real sexy. And how to spout blasphemy when they stubbed their toes."