“Still, Fritz was an optimist, and Karl was a pessimist, and that makes all the difference in the world.”

“Ovo je Fritz: beskoristan je, kao što vidiš. Posve neodgovoran. No, s druge strane, Fritz se samo igrao pripovjedača. Da je pravi majstor poput urara, znao bi kako svaki čin ima svoju posljedicu. Iza svakog tik slijedi tak. Iza rečenice - Bio jednom... - mora slijediti priča, inače će slijediti nešto drugo, a to može biti puno opasnije od priče.”

“He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn't live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.... We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we've got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we'll build... The Republic of Heaven.”

“Like all fundamentalists who get their clammy hands on the levers of power, the market fanatics are going to kill off every humane, life-enhancing, generous, imaginative and decent corner of our public life.... Market fundamentalism, this madness that's infected the human race, is like a greedy ghost that haunts the boardrooms and council chambers and committee rooms from which the world is run these days. The greedy ghost understands profit all right. But that's all. What he doesn't understand is enterprises that don't make a profit, because they're set up to do something different. He doesn't understand libraries at all....”

“Was there only one world after all which spent its time dreaming of others?”

“Stories are the most important thing in the world. Without stories, we wouldn't be human beings at all.”

“We are all subject to the fates. But we must all act as if we are not, or die of despair...death will sweep through all the worlds; it will be the triumph of despair, forever. The universes will all become nothing more than interlocking machines, blind and empty of thought, feeling, life...”