"And the odd thing in Dad's voice was the sound truth makes being sad. The sound of truth, in a wild roving land of city or plain country lies, will spell any boy."

"Yet this trains whistle! The wails of a life time were gathered in it from other nights in slumbering years; the howl of moon-dreamed dogs, the seep of river-cold winds through January porch screens which stopped the blood, a thousand fire sirens weeping, or worse! the outgone shreads of breath, the protests of a billion people dead or dying, not wanting to be dead, thier groans, their sighs, burst over the earth!"

"When rivers flooded, when fire fell from the sky, what a fine place the library was, the many rooms, the books. With luvk no one found you. How could they!-when you were off to Tanganyika in '98, Cairo in 1812, Florence in 1492!?"

"Sometimes the man who looks happiest in town, with the biggest smile, is the one carrying the biggest load of sin. There are smiles and smiles; learn to tell the dark variety from the light. The seal-barker, the laugh-shouter, half the time he's covering up. He's had his fun and he's guilty. And men do love sin, Will, oh how they love it, never doubt, in all shapes, sizes, colors, and smells."

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes." William Shakespeare

"Deep forests, dark caves, dim churches, half-lit libraries were all the same, they tuned you down, they dampened your ardor, they brought you to murmurs and soft cries for fear of raising up phantom twins of your voice which might haunt corridors long after your passage.

"Sometimes good has weapons and evil none. Sometimes tricks fail. Sometimes people can't be picked off, led to deadfalls.

"Don't tell me what I am doing; I don't want to know!"

"May I congratulate you? You are a psychotic genius! . . . Your insanity is beautifully complete!"

"There's no hatred here. From the look of their cities they were a graceful, beautiful, and philosophical people. They ascended to racial death, that much we know, and without a last-moment war of frustration to tumble down their cities. Every town we've seen so far has been flawlessly intact. They probably don't mind having us hear anymore than they'd mind children playing on the lawn, knowing and understanding children for what they are. And, anyway, perhaps this will change us for the better."

"Life on Earth never settled down to doing anything very good. Science ran too far ahead of us too quickly, and the people got lost in a mechanical wilderness, like children making over pretty things, gadgets, helicopters, rockets; emphasizing the wrong items, emphasizing machines instead of how to run the machines. Wars got bigger and bigger and finally killed the Earth. That's what the silent radio means. That's what we ran away from."