“A new experience can be extremely pleasurable, or extremely irritating, or somewhere in between, and you never know until you try it out.”

“In times of extreme stress, one can often find energy hidden in even the most exhausted areas of the body.”

“Friends can make you feel that the world is smaller and less sneaky than it really is, because you know people who have similar experiences.”

“A passport, as I'm sure you know, is a document that one shows to government officials whenever one reaches a border between two countries, so that the official can learn who you are, where you were born, and how you look when photographed unflatteringly.”

“It is very frustrating not to be understood in this world. If you say one thing and keep being told that you mean something else, it can make you want to scream. But somewhere in the world there is a place for all of us, whether you are an electric form of decoration, peppermint-scented sweet, a source of timber, or a potato pancake.”

“As I am sure you know, when people say 'It's my pleasure,' they usually mean something along the lines of, 'There's nothing on Earth I would rather do less.' [...]”

“There are some things we might not know, but that doesn't mean we should give up. We can find out what we need to know. We can find out everything”