That which is not in the interests of the hive cannot be in the interests of the bee.

The essence of Ciceronian philosophy is a sense of wonder at the interconnectedness of human beings to one another and to the universe that encompasses them.

Come away with me, he said, we will live on a desert island. I said, I am a desert island. It was not what he had in mind.

I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely.

Girls did that then — knocked themselves out to support some man's notion of his own genius. What was Gavin doing to help pay the rent? Not much, though she suspected him of dealing pot on the side. Once in a while they even smoked some of that, though not often, because it made Constance cough. It was all very romantic.

They meet in church basements and offer bandages to those wounded by the shrapnel of exploding families.

But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling.

They say: Speak for us (to whom?) Some say: Avenge us (on whom?) Some say: Take our place. Some say: Witness Others say (and these are women) Be happy for us.

xxx all souls are equal in heaven. Only in heaven, I thought. And this is not heaven. This is a place for snakes and ladders, and though I was once high up on a ladder propped up against the Tree of Life, now I've slid down a snake. How gratifying for the others to witness my fall!

The worst of it was that those people out there-the fear, the suffering the wholesale death-did not really touch him. Crake used to say that Homo sapiens sapiens was not hard-wired to individuate other people in numbers above two hundred, the size of a primal tribe, and Jimmy would reduce that number to two.

We must all make sacrifices in order to help other people," she said in a soothing tone. "Men must make sacrifices in war, and women must make sacrifices in other ways. That is how things are divided.

She looks at you as if she really sees you." So many people had looked past me. "I think I'd like that," I said. "No," said Becka. "That's why she's so scary.