Know your number. If you don__ know it you might forget who you are.

His body walks out onto the darkened stage , and a roar goes up from the crowd. He stands in front of the mic, and he can feel his face twist in a sneer-the Elvis sneer from his dreams-though he never told it to move. He is powerless now, a spectator at his own moment of glory.

It was at the outskirts of the world that the Old Things accumulated, like driftwood round the edges of the sea. ("The Troll")

Our fiction is not merely in flight from the physical data of the actual world_it is, bewilderingly and embarrassingly, a gothic fiction, nonrealistic and negative, sadist and melodramatic _ a literature of darkness and the grotesque in a land of light and affirmation_our classic [American] literature is a literature of horror for boys

The old exhortations to nationalist fervor and jingoist pride have begun to lose their appeal. Perhaps because of rising standards of living, children are being treated better worldwide. In only a few decades, sweeping global changes have begun to move in precisely the directions needed for human survival. A new consciousness is developing which recognizes that we are one species.

With no blame there's no shame. A human society can't exist without shame. Shame is like handedness or walking upright. It's a central human attribute. In fact, it's the first human quality ever recorded.''Where?''Genesis, Chapter Three. The covering of nakedness. The acquisition of shame was the first consequence of consciousness, of the speciating moment. Take shame from me and you are calling me pre-human.