“Only you pick that crab. Nobody else take it. I already know this. Everyone else want best quality. You thinking different.”

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

“I just wanted a chance. You know. Like everyone else.”

“The difference between you and everyone else, is everyone else. And that’s a lot, so you should feel special.”

“Am I cured?” “No. You’re someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that, in my view, is a serious illness.” “Is wanting to be different a serious illness?” “It is if you force yourself to be the same as everyone else. It causes neuroses, psychoses, and paranoia. It’s a distortion of nature, it goes against God’s laws, for in all the world’s woods and forests, he did not create a single leaf the same as another. But you think it’s insane to be different, and that’s why you chose to live in Villete, because everyone is different here, and so you appear to be the same as everyone else. Do you understand?” Mari nodded. “People go against nature because they lack the courage to be different, and then the organism starts to produce Vitriol, or bitterness, as this poison is more commonly known.”

“Only you can take inner freedom away from yourself, or give it to yourself. Nobody else can.”