“The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description; one must travel through it one’s self to be acquainted with it.”

“...a man’s ability to dream is the most sincere form of ambition he has in his arsenal, and the only true glimmer of one’s self one has. And if one is to ever lose that ability, it’s the same as losing one’s self altogether. To reacquire this ability, to gain a new sense of 'self', one must first die...only then can he be reborn, redefined, and ultimately rediscovered.”

“There are countries of the world, and regions of one's own mind, where it is unwise to travel.”

“Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occurred to you that you don’t go on forever. It must have been shattering, stamped into one’s memory. And yet, I can’t remember it.”

“[…] nobody grows up. Everyone carries around all the selves that they have ever been, intact, waiting to be reactivated in moments of pain, of fear, of danger. Everything is retrievable, every shock, every hurt. But perhaps it becomes a duty to abandon the stock of time that one carries within oneself, to discard it in favour of the present, so that one’s embrace may be turned outwards to the world in which one has made one’s home.”

“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.”