“An ugliness unfurled in the moonlight and soft shadow and suffused the whole world. If I were an amoeba, he thought, with an infinitesimal body, I could defeat ugliness. A man isn’t tiny or giant enough to defeat anything.”

“In this dark world where he now dwelt, ugly things and surprising things and once in a long while a tiny wondrous thing spilled out at him constantly; he could count on nothing.”

“I initially thought you were ugly, but then you walked closer to me and I realized you were pretty.”

“In an ugly and unhappy world the richest man can purchase nothing but ugliness and unhappiness.”

“Darkness was a beautiful thing. The kiss of a shadow. A caress as soft as moonlight.”

“I have said that, in a sense, the parasites were a 'shadow' of man's cowardice and passivity. Their strength could increase in an atmosphere of defeat and panic, for it fed on human fear. In that case, the best way to combat them was to change the atmosphere to one of strength and purpose.”

“Could politics ever be anything but politics, practical, cynical, compromised, ugly?”

“There was a saying that a man's true character was revealed in defeat. I thought it was also revealed in victory.”

“I loved everyone who said yes to the world and tried to make it better instead of worse, because so much in the world was ugly- and just about all the ugly parts were due to humans.”

“It was there, beyond the skin of this world, that a cure of ugliness could be found.”