The following contains spoilers for the novel, so if you haven't yet read the book, consider yourself warned. :)
Chapter 1:
"Here in the
heady bouquet of nature's pantry, your father sniffs mortality."
"Where once
your clan was innumerable, not infinite but of a large number not readily
known, now there are five of you. Five."
Chapter 2:
"You attempt to
hide your knowledge, but every so often bravado gets the better of you and it
comes out, as it just has, and then there is hell to pay."
"… and in any
case over sufficiently long a term, as everyone knows, there is nothing that
does not have as its consequence death."
Chapter 3:
" … as far as
getting rich is concerned, love can be an impediment."
"There are
times when the currents leading to wealth can manage to pull you along
regardless of whether you kick and paddle in the opposite direction."
Chapter 5:
"You are like a
living memory and she, who is implacably resistant to remembering, is unsettled
by you."
"Mobs form
quickly in these insecure times, and mobs can be merciless."
Chapter 6:
"You know
quality matters, especially for fakes."
"You are
surprised and unsurprised, unsurprised because this was surely predictable, and
surprised because you permitted yourself to hope it might be otherwise."
"Diversion is
after all what you seek."
Chapter 7:
"… it doesn’t
occur to you that your wife's love might be slipping from your grasp, or that,
once it is gone, you will miss it."
Chapter 9:
"Wealthy
civilians, in his view, are a subcategory of thief."
Chapter 10:
"The
illumination of your room is odd, futuristic, the artifact of either some
advanced bulb technology or your addled mental state."
"You remain
incarcerated. You are an old man in a hotel room, taking your medication,
looking out the dirty window at the street below, traveling by taxi when you
must.
Chapter 11:
"… and it seems
not improbable that in the race between death and destitution, you can look
forward to the former emerging victorious."
"For affluent
younger customers, the effect might be pleasant, transporting them from this
street in this neighborhood to a virtual realm inhabited by people very much
like themselves across rising Asia, or even across the planet.
Chapter 12:
"The capacity
for empathy is a funny thing."
"The city
beyond is an increasingly mythological space."
"You would do
the same. You have done the same."
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