“In Panama, I found a spider that eats its own limbs during lean times. I am told they grow back. But though the distinction is razor-thin, desperation is not the same thing as determination. Nevertheless, auto-cannibalism is one the most intriguing phenomenon I have ever heard of.”

“Sometimes I have the most amazing moments of clarity. Razor sharp, crystal clear. It's at these times I can see how fucking stupid I am.”

“Now, though, I am convinces that no one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone.That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.”

“Aquinas wondered what would happen if God wanted to achieve universal resurrection. In other words, bringing everybody who had ever lived back to life at the same time. What would happen to cannibals, and the people they ate? You couldn't bring them all back at the same time, because the cannibals are made of the people they have eaten. You could have one but not the other. Ha.' I looked at Rowan. 'That's a good example of a paradox.”

“That," I told Tatiana, "is the most fucked up law I have ever heard."[...]"You could change the quorum law if you wanted, you sanctimonious bitch!" I yelled back.”

“I am an orphan, alone: nevertheless I am found everywhere. I am one, but opposed to myself. I am youth and old man at one and the same time. I have known neither father nor mother, because I have had to be fetched out of the deep like a fish, or fell like a white stone from heaven. In woods and mountains I roam, but I am hidden in the innermost soul of man. I am mortal for everyone, yet I am not touched by the cycle of aeons.”