“Later, I would learn that coincidences are the most planned things in the world. Later, I would learn that every single moment is a coincidence.”

“Question: would I do it the same way all over again? Absolutely - because I learned something along the way. Most people don't learn things alongthe way. Or if they do, they conveniently forget those things when it suits their need. Most people, given a second chance, fuck it up completely. It'sone of those laws of the universe that you can't shake. People, I have noticed, only seem to learn once they get their third chance - after losing andwasting vast sums of time, money, youth, and energy you name it. But still they learn, which is the better thing in the end.”

“If he'd learned one thing while he'd been away, it was that loneliness is the most taboo subject in the world. Forget sex or politics or religion. Or even failure. Loneliness is what clears out a room.”

“I wondered what it was to pray, because it was something I have never learned to do, and all I remember is falling.”

“Life is boring. People are vengeful. Good things always end. We do so many things and we don’t know why, and if we do find out why, it’s decades later and knowing why doesn’t matter any more.”

“These were citizens who, never having bothered to awaken to the technological and psychic changes in their world, hadn't bothered to defend themselves, hadn't bothered to build walls or plan counterattacks or build weapons-- asleep inside their collective dream, thinking for all the world that the unthinkable would never happen. Thinking they were safe.”

“As I'm never going to be old, I'm glad that I never lost my sense of wonder about the world, although I have a hunch it would have happened pretty soon. I loved the world, its beauty and bigness as well as its smallness.”