“Life and existence have no value in themselves. We mean nothing; not even those who are needed mean anything. The only thing of real value is what we produce.”

“I wanted to live a proper life with deep, interwoven relationships for better or worse, which only death could separate.”

“That's all it was, the dream was just Jock and me and the stick and the beach and the sea and the sky and time passing by, and that was all, there was nothing else. And that was happiness.”

“People who read books," he went on, "tend to be dispensable. Extremely.”

“single people without children have a "childish sensitivity and are unwilling or unable to compromise or fit in”

“You haven't forgotten what it feels like to lose a friend because of a child, I hope?" If course I hadn't forgotten that feeling of being abruptly pushed out of a close circle to some distant periphery. Coming second, third, fourth, last. Being treated like someone less knowledgeable, someone inferior.”

“I was happy in the dream; but when I woke up it was with a feeling that I was falling apart, that I was cracking up from the inside and slowly falling to pieces. My heart was jumping and grating like a cold engine that doesn't want to start. My skin was crawling, and I couldn't manage a single clear thought. It was as if all my thoughts were crushed to bits just as they began to take shape. I didn't get much done that day.”