“That [Lottery] ticket, of course, didn’t win. And neither would any of the tickets I buy after it, but they would give me hope.”

“Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

“[I]f you want to live like a Norwegian, buy a plane ticket.”

“The center will not hold if it has been spot-welded by an operator whose deepest concern is not with the weld but with his lottery ticket.”

“Sometimes we think people are like lottery tickets, that they're there to make our most absurd dreams come true.”

“Stripped to its essentials, every decision in life amounts to choosing which lottery ticket to buy.... Most organisms don't buy lottery tickets, but they all choose between gambles every time their bodies can move in more than one way. They should be willing to 'pay' for information---in tissue, energy, and time---if the cost is lower than the expected payoff in food, safety, mating opportunities, and other resources, all ultimately valuated in the expected number of surviving offspring. In multicellular animals the information is gathered and translated into profitable decisions by the nervous system.”

“If God wanted us to fly, he would have given us tickets. ”

“I was a heartless, ungrateful wench of a girl who promised everyone who came into contact with me a one-way ticket to pain and hurt. I didn’t know how to love and I didn’t deserve to be loved back.”

“People are always annoyed by men of letters who retreat from the world; they expect them to continue to show interest in society even though they gain little benefit from it. They would like to force them be present when lots are being drawn in a lottery for which they have no tickets.”

“The possibility of physical and mental collapse is now very real. No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.”