“If you've ever thought, 'The new Times Square is delightful but would be even better if it were more claustrophobic and nearly impossible to leave', the Aguas Calientes is calling your name”

“I remembered an unpleasant weekend spent struggling to comprehend the philosopher Immanuel Kant's explanation of the difference between calling something beautiful and calling it sublime. Nowadays, we throw around the word "sublime" to describe gooey desserts or overpriced handbags. In Kant's epistemology, it meant something limitless, an aesthetically pleasing entity so huge that it made the perceiver's head hurt. Machu Picchu isn't just beautiful, it's sublime.”

“I felt bad for lying to John, who was about as honest as Abe Lincoln on sodium Pentothal.”

“The ability to arrive uninvited in an alien land and convince one’s hosts that almost everything they believe is wrong requires a rather forceful personality.”

“Breathing, for example, was never taken for granted, since, half the time, thanks to the many chemical works and refineries, it was nearly impossible.”

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

“I thought that you said that your name was reserved only for family.” A small smile broke through his stoic expression. “The way I see it, even if you don’t come around and realize that you can’t resist my striking looks and enticing charm, and that you desperately want to spend the rest of your life in my arms—” “Which will never happen…” “—you’ll eventually end up with my silly little brother. Who, just to warn you, despite being a great guy, is nowhere near as handsome and charming as I.”