“I think I exist,' he said wearily. 'I am conscious of my own identity. I was born, and I shall die. I have arms and legs. I occupy a particular point in space. No other solid object can occupy the same point simultaneously.”

“Whereas I think: I’m lying here in a haystack... The tiny space I occupy is so infinitesimal in comparison with the rest of space, which I don’t occupy and which has no relation to me. And the period of time in which I’m fated to live is so insignificant beside the eternity in which I haven’t existed and won’t exist... And yet in this atom, this mathematical point, blood is circulating, a brain is working, desiring something... What chaos! What a farce!”

“Gideon laughed. "I like to be direct.""Okay," I said. "But I warn you, I like to be evasive, inserutable and generally send mixed messages." "I doubt it.""Human interaction is not my strong point," I told him. "Not seriously.""Seriously," I said. Thinking: There is so much about me he doesn't know. Gideon put his hand on my leg. "What's your strong point, then?""Goats," I told him. "I am excellent with goats.”

“Caleb runs up to me and folds me carefully in his arms. I breathe a sigh of relief. I thought I had gotten to the point where I didn’t need my brother anymore, but I don’t think such a point actually exists.”

“I think maybe I was just waitin on the apocalypse so I would have something to occupy me.”

“I realized that my bliss and my heartbreak both point in the same direction. I follow my joy and my heartbreak simultaneously because they’re two sides of the same coin.”