“You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.”

“You know one me. Just like I know one you. But you can't know every me, Evan. And I can't know every you.”

“It is a very strange feeling when one is loving a clock that is to every one of your class of living an ugly and a foolish one and one really likes such a thing and likes it very much and liking it is a serious thing, or one likes a colored handkerchief that is very gay and every one of your kind of living thinks it a very ugly or a foolish thing and thinks you like it because it is a funny thing to like it and you like it with a serious feeling, or you like eating something that is a dirty thing and no one can really like that thing or you write a book and while you write it you are ashamed for every one must think you a silly or a crazy one and yet you write it and you are ashamed, you know you will be laughed at or pitied by every one and you have a queer feeling and you are not very certain and you go on writing. Then someone says yes to it, to something you are liking, or doing or making and then never again can you have completely such a feeling of being afraid and ashamed that you had then when you were writing or liking the thing and not any one had said yes about the thing.”

“You don't know me. You know one me, just like I know one you. And you can't know every me, and I can't know every you.”

“Are you saying a society wracked by plague is preferable to one wracked by indifference?”

“The best authors are both evocative AND precise. But if you prefer one over the other, who is to say what's best? Every book isn't for every person. What matters is your experience. The long and short of it is, if you like it, you like it. Some people disapprove, but they suck. End of story.”