“A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.”

“A single thought, he considered, could do all sorts of harm. Harm to what, he wasn't sure, but he identified it as harm.”

“There didn't seem to her any harm in it, and the make-believe was so comforting.”

“We infrequently contemplate the harms that await any new-born child—pain, disappointment, anxiety, grief, and death. For any given child we cannot predict what form these harms will take or how severe they will be, but we can be sure that at least some of them will occur. None of this befalls the nonexistent. Only existers suffer harm.”

“Learn this from me. Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.”

“It is clear that there are situations where we should restrict a child: letting them ingest poison, for example, would be against common sense, but to hinder an adult from taking poison consciously is against common sense also.[...] Seeking to influence others for what we consider "good" is the most idiotic presumption we are capable of. Essentially, we are trying to impose our values on the next person, and to make them our puppets.”