“There is an awful feeling of inevitability to life. Maybe this feeling is some proof of the existence of fate... or more likely it's simply the way our brains function that gives us this illusion. It's hard to say for certain.”

“Books have no life; they lack feeling maybe, and perhaps cannot feel pain, as animals and even plants feel pain. But what proof have we that inorganic objects can feel no pain? Who knows if a book may not yearn for other books, its companions of many years, in some way strange to us and therefore never yet perceived?”

“In that way Vinteuil's phrase, like some theme, say, in Tristan, which represents to us also a certain acquisition of sentiment, has espoused our mortal state, had endued a vesture of humanity that was affecting enough. Its destiny was linked, for the future, with that of the human soul, of which it was one of the special, the most distinctive ornaments. Perhaps it is not-being that is the true state, and all our dream of life is without existence; but, if so, we feel that it must be that these phrases of music, these conceptions which exist in relation to our dream, are nothing either. We shall perish, but we have for our hostages these divine captives who shall follow and share our fate. And death in their company is something less bitter, less inglorious, perhaps even less certain.”

“Serotonin, the "feel-good" brain chemical that is boosted by Prozac, depends on magnesium for its production and function.”

“I'm not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare -- or, if not, it's some equally brainy lad -- who says that it's always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole, and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping.”

“What does it mean to feel something similar to the wayGod feels? Is that like saying a pebble is similar to the sun because both are round?” he responded.“Maybe God designed our brains to feel love the same way he feels it. He could do that if he wanted to.”