"The party had demanded this; Weintraub was to be a scapegoat, the local conspirator in the Reichstag tragedy. “I suppose I can’t doubt them,” he thought, as his heart pounded, as his mouth grew dry, as he felt his head become airy and his thoughts giddy. “After all, the Party has the broadest perspective. I don’t have any real sense of this worldwide operation. It’s all for the greater good, I guess. They know what they’re doing."

“Proper knowledge defeats the shouting minions of emotion.”

“The only negative thing she had to say was that I displayed a tendency to exaggerate the facts for the sake of interesting reading.”

“You bought the girls drinks and you stared at their perfect bodies and you pretended that they liked you. And they pretended that they liked you, too. When you stopped spending money, they got up and pretended that they liked someone else.”

“Perhaps he could organize everyone. He could stand up on something and shout slogans until he had attracted enough attention. Then he could begin some rambling speech, hoping that the people around him would be so desperate for leadership they wouldn’t notice the absurdity of what he said.”

“With a stiff forefinger I silenced the koto music. Peace flooded in; the world thanked me.”

“His thoughts grew confused, and he mistook that quality for complexity.”