“Only prisoners have time to read, and if you want to engage in a twenty-year long research project funded by the state, you will have to kill someone.”

“Are you sure you want to go out with someone with that kind of history? ...He could have a psychotic break. I read that people get those when they're twenty-eight.”

“And eternity is a long time. So if you have to spend it with someone I could see wanting to spend it with someone impossible...but interesting....”

“How about Proust's In Search of Lost Time?" Tamaru asked. "If you've never read it this would be a good opportunity to read the whole thing." "Have you read it?""No, I haven't been in jail, or had to hide out for a long time. Someone once said unless you have those kinds of opportunities, you can't read the whole of Proust.”

“We can only be ourselves in the long run. Everyone can be someone else for a time. Actors have jobs for a reason. But eventually, our true natures win out. You never could have been someone else for long, even if you tried. It would have broken you”

“I spent much of my prison time reading. I must have read over 200 large books, mostly fictional stories about the American pioneers, the Vikings, Mafia, etc. As long as I was engrossed in a book, I was not in prison. Reading was my escape.”