“Each time I fail to think about death, I have the impression of cheating, of deceiving someone in me.”

“Even that some people try deceived me many times ... I will not fail to believe that somewhere, someone deserves my trust.”

“You cannot train yourself to successfully and sustainedly unsee and unhear — you do them all the time, but they also fail, repeatedly, and you cheat, repeatedly, in all sorts of small ways. The book mentions that several times. It is absolutely about absolute fidelity to those particular urban protocols, exaggerations or extrapolations of the ones that I think are all around us all the time in the real world; but it's also about cheating them, and failing them, and playing a little fast and loose, which I think is an inextricable part of such norms.”

“You didn't strike me as stupid, but I guess first impressions are deceiving.”

“He said, speaking more to himself than to me: 'It was knowledge I sought. Knowledge which is clean and pure, far above the cheating and deceiving in which most men spend their lives.'And do you not find it,' I asked, 'this knowledge which you prize?'In part,' he said. 'I find other things, too. Things I do not desire but must accept. There is still cheating and deceiving.”

“I know that life is just a game An illusion that will fade Cheat and lie, have it your way But you can’t cheat death, no way”