“Minerva save us from the cloying syrup of coercive compassion! What feminism does not need, it seems to me, is an endless recycling of Doris Day Fifties clichés about noble womanhood.”

“True compassion is not about giving or taking. True compassion is doing just what is needed.”

“Shaun: You know, when you sponsor a child like Doris here, you’ll be doing more than just putting food on her table. If every Australian gave a dollar a week to someone like Doris, that would guarantee her a weekly income of about 18 million dollars. Almost a billion dollars a year. That buys a lot in Doris’ village. Enough coconuts to stretch from here to Neptune transported in solid gold space shuttles fuelled by burning bank notes. Does seem a bit excessive doesn’t it?”

“Does my new feminism make me look fat?”

“It occurs to you that Ulysses is about cliché. It is about inherited, ready-made formulations - most notably Irish Catholicism and anti-Semitism. After all, prejudices are clichés: they are secondhand hatreds... Joyce never uses a cliché in innocence.”

“The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense,
else what shall save us from a second slavery?”

“We need a science to save us from science.”

“The noble art of losing face
may some day save the human race
and turn into eternal merit
what weaker minds would call disgrace.”

“Trying to avoid clichés helps life become fresh again, helps us remember what life is about in the first place. -Fingerprint.”

“We need a little more compassion, and if we cannot have it then no politician or even a magician can save the planet.”