Цитаты из книги «Высотка», страница 8

Так или иначе, Уайлдер любил и понимал ночь - только в темноте освобождались подавленные инстинкты.

Лифты, снующие вверх и вниз по длинным шахтам, напоминали работу сердечных клапанов; жители текли по коридорам, словно клетки - по сети артерий; огни в квартирах горели, как нейроны мозга.

...he thought continually about the apartment building, a Pandora's box whose thousand lids were one by one inwardly opening.

"In fact, it's not really the other residents. It's the building..."

"Dick, it's a huge children's party that's got out of hand."

...their hostility to him, not only because he was a man, but because he was so obviously trying to climb to a level above their own.

"We'll think of something." A curious answer, he realized, implying that there were other sources of food than the supermarket. He looked down at Jane Sheridan's plump figure.

...no one cared what they drank, interested only in getting drunk as quickly as possible and blunting whatever sensibilities were left to them.

The dirt on his hands, his stale clothes and declining hygiene, his fading interest in food and drink, all helped to expose a more real version of himself.

Laing was no longer surprised by the way in which the residents, who only a few weeks earlier had been united in their anger over the breakdown of the building's services, were now just as united in assuring any outsiders that all was well - partly out of a displaced pride in the high-rise, but also out of a need to resolve the confrontation between them without interference, like rival gangs battling across a refuse tip who joined forces to expel any intruder.