"The shoes and murmurs of shoppers passing him sounded impatient, as pedestrian movements always do to someone at rest, creating a patter so unbearable that only joining it could bring relief. "

"He wasn't a chuch goer, of course, but he'd long allowed the Resurrection a certain margin of credence, maybe 37 percent in a random sampling of his mind's constituents."

"... the character of their drinking began to change, to cross the line between lubrication and anesthesia."

from The Twenty-Seventh City