"Togetherness is beating up an empty elevator."

"In the future, violence would clearly become a valuable form of social cement."

"The ultimate dystopia is the inside of one’s own head."

"Wilder went into his sons' bedroom. Glad to see Wilder, they banged their empty feeding-bowls with their plastic machine-pistols. They were dressed in miniature paratroopers' camouflage suits and tin helmets -- the wrong outfit, Wilder reflected, in light of what had been taking place in the high-rise. The correct combat costume was stockbrokers' pin-stripe, briefcase and homburg."

"Already it was clear that the lower floors were doomed. Even their insistence on educating their children, the last reflex of any exploited group before it sank into submission, marked the end of their resistance."

"Not for the first time Laing reflected that he and his neighbors were eager for trouble as the most effective means of enlarging their sex lives."