"Only one English word adequately describes his transformation of the islands from worthless to priceless: magical." Book One, Chap. 4, p. 18

"About that mystifying enthusiasm a million years ago for turning over as many human activities as possible to machinery: What could that have been but yet another acknowledgment by people that their brains were no damn good?" Book One, Chap. 8, p. 39

"The tests were incapable of detecting minor defects in the fetus, such as that it might be as tone deaf as Mary Hepburn, which it wasn't—or that it might be covered with a fine, silky pelt like a fur seal's, which would actually turn out to be the case." Book One, Chap. 13, p. 60

"Yes, and I pause to marvel now at how little interested this man was in reproduction, in being a huge success biologically—despite his exhibitionistic sexuality and his mania for claiming...