“You had to exert yourself to see this world. But if you did, if you had that kind of curiosity, if you had an innate interest in the welfare of your fellow human beings, and if you went through that door, a strange thing happened: you left your petty troubles on the threshold. It could be addictive”

“He invited me to a world that wasn't secret, but it was well hidden. You needed a guide. You had to know what to look for, but also how to look. You had to exert yourself to see this world." p 224”

“if you wanted special things to happen in your life, then you had to damn well get up of your own backside and make them happen yourself.”

“How did you explain a thing it had not occurred to you to question? A thing you just knew, clear through to your soul?”

“Happiness often sneaks in a door you did not know you had left open.”

“I'd always known that when you went through one of these doors, you went to another planet, and that that other planet might be so far away, you couldn't fly there in spaceship in a million years. Somehow, the whole thing had never seemed strange before today.”