The cat, morbidly obese from eating virtually all of Isaac’s meals, fell off the table like a four-legged haggis, and trudged away. - Neal Stephenson

The ancestral home of the Forthrasts was situated in the northwestern quadrant of Iowa...now being displayed in miniature, superimposed on a coffee table in an eating club at Princeton University, visible only to Sophia and to the friends she had shared it with: Phil, Julian, and Anne-Solenne. They could see it as long as they were wearing their glasses.
They were planning a summer road trip. They had worked it out as far as Des Moines by following interstate highways. Now Sophia was proposing a diagonal transit to Sioux City on two-lane roads. The very idea of it had led to blank stares...until a solution had taken shape in the agile brain of Sophia's boyfriend Phil: “Look. I’m just not going to tell my parents—or anyone—that we are temporarily going off grid.” ... Sophia decided on the spot not to dump Phil for at least another few weeks.

If you sincerely believed in God, how could you form one thought, speak one sentence, without mentioning Him?

Hiro watches the large, radioactive, spear-throwing killer drug lord ride his motorcycle into Chinatown. Which is the same as riding it into China, as far as chasing him down is concerned.