“Inside all people there is love, also the need to take care of the other man who is his brother. Inside everyone is a savage, but there is also happening tenderness and compassion.”

“every man is an island and at the same time also robinson crusoe.”

“I knew then that the person on the outside was only a shell, a presence to be seen and provoked. Inside was the real me, where my tears joined the tears of all the sad people to form the three waterfalls in the night country.”

“what is a german? to say a man is a german, what is that? does it tell you if he is a good man? or a bad man? no, my friend, it tells you nothing about a man to say he is german. a man must think what he is inside. what he is on the outside, how can this matter?”

“In teaching me independence of thought, they had given me the greatest gift an adult can give to a child besides love, and they had given me that also.”

“Your brain, Peekay, has two functions; it is a place for original thought, but also it is a reference library. Use it to tell you where to look, and then you will have for yourself all the brains that have ever been”

“The Tragedy of the human condition is that the very things that make us interesting and culturally important and progressively brilliant are our differences; and these are also the principle reasons for our prejudices”