“An incentive provokes an action but get excited about things you know you can do even without anybody's support.”

“Above all, beware of compromises. I do not mean that you are to get into antagonism with anybody, but you have to hold on to your own principles in weal or woe and never adjust them to others' "fads" through the greed of getting supporters. Your Atman is the support of the universe—whose support do you stand in need of?”

“Then how about because you challenge me?" he said. "You provoke me, excite me. Make me think about things I shouldn't think about, want things I thought would be impossible once I became king.”

“Whatever age you are when you’re first burned is old enough to lose hope that you’ll ever get excited about anybody else.”

“The unusual thing about new relationships is that they innately want to become grown-up relationships as fast as they can. They do this by pulling you to learn everything you can about each other, even though the most exciting part about a new relationship is the mystery of who the other person is.”

“See, most people you meet, they'll talk to you through fifty layers of gauze and tinting. Sometimes you know they're lying even before they've started speaking. And it seems the older they get, the more brazen and desperate folks become, and they lie about things that don't even matter... I don't know. Maybe they just get so used to it they don't even notice. Maybe it's like a creeping curse and the more you do it, the easier it gets. What's amazing is that they think they're fooling anybody.”