“Another reason it would be a good invention is that there are so many times when you know you're feeling a lot of something, but you don't know what the something is.”

“He was responsible. He was good. It's easy to be emotional. You can always make a scene. Highs and lows make you feel that things matter, but they're nothing." "So what's something?" "Being reliable is something, being good.”

“And also, there are so many times when you need to make a quick escape, but humans don't have their own wings, or not yet, anyway, so what about a birdseed shirt?”

“You have to do something bad to do something good.”

“A map such as that one is worth many hundreds, and as luck will have it, thousands of dollars. But more than this, it is a remembrance of that time before our planet was so small. When this map was made, I thought, you could live without knowing where you were not living.”

“The bruises go away, and so does how you hate, and so does the feeling that everything you receive from life is something you have earned.”

“Are you an optimist or a pessimist?" "I can't remember. Which?" "Do you know what those words mean?" "Not really." "An optimist is positive and hopeful. A pessimist is negative and cynical." "I'm an optimist." "Well, that's good, because there’s no irrefutable evidence. There’s nothing that could convince someone who doesn’t want to be convinced. But there is an abundance of clues that would give the wanting believer something to hold on to.”