“Death is much too high a price to pay for the satisfaction of curiosity, needless to say.”

“...how much needless despair has been caused by a series of biological mismatches, a misalignment of the hormones and pheromones? Resulting in the fact that the one you love so passionately won't or can't love you. As a species we're pathetic that way: imperfectly monogamous.”

“But reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows”

“You can’t buy it, but it has a price,” said Oryx. “Everything has a price.”

“Why is it he feels some line has been crossed, some boundary transgressed? How much is too much, how far is too far?”

“Where was the threshold, between the inner world and the outer one? We each move unthinkingly through this gateway every day, we use the passwords of grammar--I say, you say, he and she, it, on the other hand, does not say--paying for the privilege of sanity with common coin, with meanings we've agreed on.”

“You can forget who you are if you're alone too much.”