“All my joys resemble more a momentary intoxication than the real gold of happiness. It was all but an illusion.”

“But what's worth more than gold?""Practically everything. You, for example. Gold is heavy. Your weight in gold is not very much gold at all. Aren't you worth more than that?”

“A book no more contains reality than a clock contains time. A book may measure so-called reality as a clock measures so-called time; a book may create an illusion of reality as a clock creates an illusion of time; a book may be real, just as a clock is real (both more real, perhaps, than those ideas to which they allude); but let's not kid ourselves - all a clock contains is wheels and springs and all a book contains is sentences.”

“All these years I had been sustained by an illusion-happiness through victory- and now that illusion was burned to ashes. I was no more happier, no more fullfilled, for all my achievements. Finally I saw through the clouds I saw that I had never learned how to enjoy life, only how to achieve. All my life i had been busy seeking happiness, but never finding it or sustaining it.”

“My cheek stings with Demi’s anger. On my lips, the taste of her skin lingers. The two sensations mix, intoxicating me. It’s all too much. And yet, it’s all so much more real than anything I’ve experienced before. I want to drink it up, let the rush crest over me. I feel alive. Powerful.And I want more.”

“We're hallucinating. And that's what this world is: a mass hallucination, where fear seems more real than love. Fear is an illusion. Our craziness, paranoia, anxiety and trauma are literally all imagined.”