“The tunnels may be long, and twisted, and dark; but you are supposed to go through them.”

“people themselves are full of tunnels: winding, dark spaces and caverns; impossible to know all the places inside of them. Impossible even to imagine.”

“We can never understand. We can only try, fumbling our way through the tunneled places, reaching for light.”

“Yes, the world was very strange. But you had to walk through. That was the trick. You had to keep walking through, always, with your chin held high, the way she had passed through the tunnels of the underworld, with only the dim light of the lumpen to guide her. That was the other trick, the other truth: Light would come to you from unexpected places.”

“I know that life isn't life if you just float through it. I know that the whole point- the only point- is to find the things that matter and hold onto them and fight for them and refuse to let them go.”

“But...books are so much more. Some of them are webs; you can feel your way along their threads, but just barely, into strange and dark corners. Some of them are balloons bobbing up through the sky: totally self-contained, and unreachable, but beautiful to watch.And some of them―the best ones―are doors.”

“I have the urge to lay my hand on his shoulder and say, 'I understand.' But the words seem stupid. We can never understand. We can only try, fumbling our way through the tunneled places, reaching for light.”