She may know a little, may think of herself, face and body, as ‘pretty’… but he could never tell her all the rest, how many other living things, bird… - Thomas Pynchon

For me, Shambhala, you see, turned out to be not a goal but an absence. Not the discovery of a place but the act of leaving the futureless place where I was. And in the process I arrived at Constantinople.

For a boy not getting any he had more woman problems than anybody he knew.

"To rule forever," continues the Chinaman, later, "it is necessary only to create, among the people one would rule, what we call...Bad History. Nothing will produce Bad History more directly nor brutally, than drawing a Line, in particular a Right Line, the very Shape of Contempt, through the midst of a People, — to create thus a Distinction betwixt 'em, — 'tis the first stroke. — All else will follow as if predestin'd, unto War and Devastation."