“It's completely logical," explained the Dodecahedron. "The more you want, the less you get, and the less you get, the more you have. Simple arithmetic, that's all. Suppose you had something and added something to it. What would that make?""More," said Milo quickly."Quite correct," he nodded. "Now suppose you had something and added nothing to it. What would you have?""The same," he answered again, without much conviction. "Splendid," cried the Dodecahedron. "And suppose you had something and added less than nothing to it. What would you have then?""FAMINE!" roared the anguished Humbug, who suddenly realized that that was exactly what he'd eaten twenty-three bowls of.”

“What do you mean less than nothing? I don't think there is any such thing as less than nothing. Nothing is absolutely the limit of nothingness. It's the lowest you can go. It's the end of the line. How can something be less than nothing? If there were something that was less than nothing, then nothing would not be nothing, it would be something - even though it's just a very little bit of something. But if nothing is nothing, then nothing has nothing that is less than it is.”

“Do you know what it was like all those years trying to get you to talk to me and you acting as if I was some sort of pariah, like I had done something so terrible that I was supposed to be banished somewhere you would never have to see me again?”

“Then I said something. I said, Suppose, just suppose, nothing had ever happened. Suppose this was for the first time. Just suppose. It doesn't hurt to suppose. Say none of the other had ever happened. You know what I mean? Then what? I said.”

“YOU ARE WHO AND WHAT YOU DECIDE YOU ARE—NOTHING MORE, NOTHING LESS.”

“But what then? What had he really gained by all this trouble? What had he brought back from this long and weary journey?Nothing, you say? Perhaps so; nothing but a charming woman, who, strange as it may appear, made him the happiest of men!Truly, would you not for less than that make the tour around the world?”