“You think I'm strong because I sound off and go on about things and am very direct and seem very full of myself...but the truth is, I am much, much feebler than you. I just go on like this to keep my end up. You think what you're doing is right and that gives you strength. You see, I know I'm not right, I know there is no right. The only "right" I am is that I know what I like and what I want, and what I like and what I want is you, more than anyone else in all the world does, or could."Thomas to Elizabeth "The Other Side of You”

“I'm telling you this because I want you to know that I know something about you isn't right. You haven't fooled everybody. I'm going to find out what you're up to. I'm going to expose you.""Looking forward to it.”

“I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is. Harder. You’d think we’d be getting better at it. But there’s just more and more chaos. The pieces—they’re everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it’s right, but because it will mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe in that.”

“I should never have told you . . . I don’t know what happened to me. I just . . . wanted to talk to somebody." "And if you hadn’t you’d still be going crazy with what you know, and I’d be going crazy with what I didn’t know, and both of us would be alone. Right now, I’m upset but I’m . . ." Neverfell hesitated, like one stretching a limb they think might be broken. "I’m all right. I think I’m more all right than I have been for ages. Great big holes of unknown are the worst thing. Before this, I didn’t know anything was wrong but I didn’t not know, if you see what I mean. You can go mad like that. And if my face is spoilt now, once and for all, then it means I don’t have to worry about it any more.”

“If I know better than you know what I am up to, it is only because I spend more time with myself than you do.”

“but what is it you wanted to learn from the teachings and teachers, and those who taught you so much, what could they not teach you?" and he concluded: "it was the i, whose meaning and essence i wanted to learn. it was the i, from which i wanted release, which i wanted to conquer. but i could not conquer it, i could only deceive it, only flee from it, only hide myself from it. truly, nothing in the world has taken up so much of my thinking as this i of mine, this conundrum, that i am alive, that i am one and separate and cut off from everyone else, that i am siddhartha! and about nothing in the world do i know less about than me, about siddhartha!”