“Freedom doesn’t give you the license to do whatever the hell you want. It doesn’t give you the license to, excuse my language, piss on other people’s freedom.”

“Why would you sacrifice today’s freedom for a future that will always remain uncertain, no matter how carefully you plan for it?”

“Whining is a form of manipulation. People will give anything to make you shut up.”

“My emotional range is limited. I can’t do grief, but rage is my friend. For instance, I hate death by sickness. It is nothing like Homer, the Old Testament, and Tolkien led me to expect. It is not noble and awe-inspiring. No one delivers a final soliloquy. It is as abrupt and banal as the flicking of a switch. The squiggly line on the monitor straightens out, the defibrillator doesn’t even go whomp, the epinephrine is useless, the nurse doing CPR looks up and even before the doctor pronounces the words, you know. This is not what death should be. Death, the reason for religion, the subject of great literature, the certainty we spend our lives warding off, the giant mystery that looms over everything we do, death should be spectacular, not pity-inducing, a bang and not a whimper. A huge ball of fire, a shower of sparks, a final charge into the ranks of your enemies, a terrific explosion, a backward dive into the fiery pit. Not. . . this.”

“You can not make someone love you. You can not be thin enough or white enough or famous enough. The choice is entirely the other person's. Then again, you might try hypnosis.”

“Yes, it’s true that you can’t learn everything from books. But you do learn something about everything.”

“Being good does make a difference. You will not receive praise or payment for it, and other people will mistake your goodness for weakness, but it resonates among people you won't even meet.”