“Genuinely social people never ceased to amaze him. Their brains seemed to generate an inexhaustible fund of things to say, naturally, with no effort, out of nothing at all.”

“But she was not even grateful to him for it; nothing good on Pierre's part seemed to her to be an effort, it seemed so natural for him to be kind to everyone that there was no merit in his kindness.”

“It never ceases to amaze me that in times of amazing human suffering somebody says something that can be so utterly stupid.”

“But it never ceases to amaze me how difficult the things that are supposed to be instinctive really are.”

“The neural processes underlying that which we call creativity have nothing to do with rationality. That is to say, if we look at how the brain generates creativity, we will see that it is not a rational process at all; creativity is not born out of reasoning.”

“David thought living in a house was very difficult. It was not the house itself--that was lovely to be in--but the people. What was so difficult about them was that they constantly seemed to expect him to say and do things he would never have though of, and what appeared sensible and natural to him seemed to surprise them...”