Could it be, God forbid, that nationality is only a superficial, insignificant layer of the onion that is your being? What would you think of the man who would say of himself ‘I am an overcoat’ just because he happened to be wearing one?

Brentford gave the polite smile of a man who talks daily with a living mechanical head about a city in the Arctic Circle governed by hermaphrodite Siamese twins born from a dead woman, and refrained from further comments about the probable and improbable.

... Paris was no more Babylon than it was New Jerusalem. All cities worthy of that name were both: they were one because they were the other...

A body is not unlike a pet -- stupid and dirty as it is, one becomes attached to it.

... even if the previous millisecond is closer to us than the birth of the universe, it is equally out of reach.

When in doubt, do what they do in books, was one of Gabriel's secret mottos and - that rarest of things - a principle that he actually lived by.

The news took a moment to sink in, probably because there was no bottom for it to alight upon.

I have heard about your gifts myself, Miss Roth,' read the subtitle under Brentford's awkward mumble.

Could it be, God forbid, that nationality is only a superficial, insignificant layer of the onion that is your being? What would you think of the man who would say of himself 'I am an overcoat' just because he happened to be wearing one?

This isn't the time for bravado, Mr. Orsini,' he said.Brentford couldn't help himself. 'No, it isn't,' he said. 'Perhaps you could come back later?