“One of the disadvantages of almost universal education was the fact that all kinds of persons acquired a familiarity with one's favorite writers. It gave one a curious feeling; it was like seeing a drunken stranger wrapped in one's dressing gown.”

“Now, why should the universe be constructed in such a way that atoms acquire the ability to be curious about themselves? That, surely, is one of the great unexplained puzzles of science.”

“He was just a boy wearing pajamas, one slipper, and an old blue dressing gown under a stranger's jacket, and he did not belong anywhere but in his own bedroom.”

“One of the most difficult of all things to endure for a crow, a raven, a wolf, or a human is to feel alone and separated from one's own kind. A sense of belonging is one of the most universal of all feelings.”

“The ideal three stories a day are one favorite, one familiar, and one new, but the same book three times is also fine.”

“It was like I existed in a kind of parallel universe, thinking thoughts and feelings that no one else understood.”