Do you shovel to survive, or survive to shovel?

It would seem that marsupials are poor imitations of full-fledged mammals. Their inadequacy gives them a certain appeal; we’re touched by it.

Just as trees bear their fruit before winter, just as bamboo grass produces its seeds just before it withers, sex is simply a struggle with death on the human level.

Certainly sand was not suitable for life. Yet, was a stationary condition absolutely indispensable for existence? Didn’t unpleasant competition arise precisely because one tried to cling to a fixed position? If one were to give...

Nothing is so awkward as a demonstration of humanity by the enemy.

If from the beginning you always believed that a ticket was only one-way, then you wouldn’t have to try so vainly to cling to the sand like an oyster to a rock.

They say the level of civilization is proportionate to the degree of cleanliness of the skin. Assuming that man has a soul, it must, in all likelihood, be housed in the skin.

If animal history has been a history of evolution, then the history of mankind is one of retrogression. Hooray for monsters! Monsters are the great embodiments of the weak.

One measure of a civilization, in fact, is the percentage of misfits in its society.

When will you ever accept the true ugliness of health?

The future is forever a projection of the present.

Something whose connection with human experience we cannot grasp is bound to be frightening.

And again, the dark street. The dark, dark street. The women out shopping for the evening meal of course, and baby carriage and the silver bicycle were already painted out by the darkness; most of...

There wasn’t a single item of importance [in the newspaper]. A tower of illusion, all of it, made of illusory bricks and full of holes. If life were made up only of imporant things, it...

Inspecting? What do you mean? I don’t understand. I’m collecting insects. My specialty is sand and insects.What?Collecting insects. Insects. Insects.I catch them like this!Insects?

The dial of the clock wears out unevenly; Most worn Is the area round eight. As it is stared at with abrasive glancesunfailingly twice a day, It is weathered away. On the other side The...