“The leaders use their power to crush people's natural desire to think for themselves. It's foot binding for the brain.”

“...most people in the world don't really use their brains to think. And people who don't think are the ones who don't listen to others.”

“They take the circuits out of people’s brains that make it possible for them to think for themselves. Their world is like the one that George Orwell depicted in his novel. I’m sure you realize that there are plenty of people who are looking for exactly that kind of brain death. It makes life a lot easier. You don’t have to think about difficult things, just shut up and do what your superiors tell you to do.”

“If you try to use your head to think about things, people don't want to have anything to do with you”

“That's wrong," she declared. "Everyone must have one thing that they can excel at. It's just a matter of drawing it out, isn't it? But school doesn't know how to draw it out. It crushes the gift. It's no wonder most people never get to be what they want to be. They just get ground down.”

“I used to think the years would go by in order, that you get older one year at a time. But it's not like that. It happens overnight.”

“Grammar is like the air: someone higher up might try to set rules for its use, but people won't necessarily follow them.”