“i know by heart the places he likes to saale, delvan first and duvlin after, by dredgerous lands and devious delts”

“This land, like so much of the French countryside, was a painting, but Mercier felt his heart touched with melancholy and realized, not for the first time, that beautiful places were hard on lonely people.”

“He sees the land of meaning, and one path to it, and the so-called “normal” people traveling swiftly and in comfort to the land; he does not include the shipwrecked people who arrive by devious lonely routes, and the many who dwell in the land in the beginning.”

“It is such a secret place, the land of tears. That is what the narrator ofThe Little Prince says after the little prince argues with him the first time about matters of consequence. And he was right. My land of tears had been a secret for a very long time.”

“There is no such place as the promised land, but it would be foolish to reject even an unpromised land as worthless without first inspecting it thoroughly.”

“Most people felt lost after high school. Sometimes I felt like I'd never really been found in the first place.”