As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound.

But immobilizing darts don't bring on sleep gently, like a good cup of tea; they knock out like a bottle of hard liquor straight up.

I like using animals because they help suspend my reader's disbelief. We have certain ideas about dentists. We don't have many ideas about rhinoceros dentists.

Roetown, of mixed economy, neither boom nor bust, just ordinary times — that is, hard — had a slightly run-down aspect, I suppose. But in a pleasing way, like a man you love who has buttoned his coat up wrong.

Misery loves company, and madness calls it forth.

The presence of God is the finest of rewards.