Like capitalism,” Carl suggested. “’We’ll give you so much pleasure, you’ll never want to try another socioeconomic system.

They came for the freedom, they stayed for the McNuggets.

It sounds disgusting, in my opinion, ‘stuffing,’” she continued. “I’d never heard of it before Rafe told me. To put your fingers inside a raw bird. It’s the sort of thing they did on the frontier, isn’t it.

Would you fancy a shag?”“Is that like a scrum?”“It could be.

To find the spirit of change—was that it?—after the change had happened.

But what are they?” Annie asked.“An omphalos, probably,” said Jacob.“A what, dear?” Melinda asked.“A bellybutton of the world.”“I didn’t know it had one.

And suddenly it was all too much for him. He felt sad and misplaced, with the abrupt, overwhelming, dizzying sadness that comes over people in countries not their own, which has none of the richness of feeling that usually comes with sadness but is rather a kind of exhaustion.

I just remembered. My hamster is loose.”“Is that a thing to say to a nice girl?

No radio, no telephone,” Melinda observed. “No mod cons whatsoever in Hloubetin, are there.”“We have a hamster,” Jacob said.“Not traditionally considered an amenity.

It was a mistake to think that in the new world they would be able to care in the old way. In the new world you had to find something of value and learn not to care for it. You had to learn how to sell it.