“There are many perks to living for twenty-one centuries, and foremost among them is bearing witness to the rare birth of genius. It invariably goes like this: Someone shrugs off the weight of his cultural traditions, ignores the baleful stares of authority, and does something his countrymen think to be completely batshit insane. Of those, Galileo was my personal favorite. Van Gogh comes in second, but he really was batshit insane.”

“Genius is one of the many forms of insanity.”

“Wasn't he the one who sliced off his ear and mailed it to his girlfriend?""Van Gogh," said Varen, in a monotone that suggested he might be in pain."Van Gogh," Gwen said, leaning away, waving the apple. "Edgar Allan Poe. Close enough!”

“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”

“Sometimes... the first step to forgiveness is realizing that the other person... is batshit crazy.”

“He was insane, he thought people were trying to destroy him, to suck out his guts, but, she noted, in the rare event that someone was trying to destroy you, to suck out your guts, insanity was a goodly metaphysics.”