“It would not be completely unreasonable to suggest that if J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, and Dean Koontz were to get together in a time machine and travel back to early 1982 so that they could have a drunken, care-free, passionate orgy with Douglas Adams, that I might have been the love child of such a coming together.”

“The dangerous paradox of living in this age of instant communication is that the act of communication has become something of a virtue. Apparently, because people have the ability to communicate instantly, they have lost the ability to communicate at all.”

“There is a very thin line between fighting for what you believe to be right and becoming that which you are fighting against.”

“Of course, one other hypothetical alternative would have been for the child to decide that since she was fine the way she was, there must have been something terribly wrong with her parents. But children need at least the continuing hope that their parents may come to love them. To decide that these crazy parents will never love her, no matter what she does, no matter whom she becomes, would leave a child buried in a depth of despair in which she would surely suffocate and die. (86)”

“He had been wont to despise emotions: girls were weak, emotions–tears– were weakness. But this morning he was thinking that being a great brain in a tower, nothing but brain, wouldn’t be much fun. No excitement, no dog to love, no joy in the blue sky– no feelings at all. But feelings– feelings are emotions! He was suddenly overwhelmed by the revelation that what makes life worth living is, precisely, the emotions. But then– this was awful!– maybe girls with their tears and laughter were getting more out of life. Shattering! He checked himself, showing one’s emotions was not the thing: having them was. Still, he was dizzy with the revelation. What is beauty but something is responded to with emotion? Courage, at least, is partly emotional. All the splendour of life. But if the best of life is, in fact, emotional, then one wanted the highest, the purest emotions: and that meant joy. Joy was the highest. How did one find joy? In books it was found in love– a great love… So if he wanted the heights of joy, he must have it, if he could find it, in great love. But in the books again, great joy through love always seemed go hand in hand with frightful pain. Still, he thought, looking out across the meadow, still, the joy would be worth the pain– if indeed, they went together. If there were a choice– and he suspected there was– a choice between, on the one hand, the hights and the depths and, on the other hand, some sort of safe, cautious middle way, he, for one, here and now chose the heights and the depths.Since then the years have gone by and he– had he not had what he chose that day in the meadow? He had had the love. And the joy– what joy it had been! And the sorrow. He had had– was having– all the sorrow there was. And yet, the joy was worth the pain. Even now he re-affirmed that long-past choice.”

“The most insidious of the premature responsibilities that may be foisted onto some children is the expectation that the child is somehow supposed to take care of his parents, rather than the other way around. Parents who were themselves raised with too little attention given to their own early feelings, if they have not worked out the resulting emotional problems in subsequent years, often look forward to having children of their own so that the children will make them happy. (81)”

“I rubbed him along his back, letting him know I was there for him, and if we did have our brains sucked out at least we were together.”