“[...] the awesome splendor of the universe is much easier to deal with if you think of it as a series of small chunks.”

“Keep your vocabulary as wide as you can. I have some difficulty with the word ‘cool’, and I’m not too bothered about the word ‘awesome’. People like me are looking to people like you guys of the next generation to deal with this shit. It’s like seeing a rock guitarist pick up a Fender Stratocaster and hold it the wrong way.”

“The thing is, I mean, there’s times when you look at the universe and you think, “What about me?” and you can just hear the universe replying, “Well, what about you?” ”

“So much universe, and so little time.”

“That is because you don't yet know how to deal with time," said Wen. "But I will teach you to deal with time as you would deal with a coat, to be worn when necessary and discarded when not.""Will I have to wash it?" said Clodpool.Wen gave him a long, slow look."That was either a very complex piece of thinking on your part, Clodpool, or you were just trying to overextend a metaphor in a rather stupid way. Which, do you think, it was?"Clodpool looked at his feet. Then he looked at the sky. Then he looked at Wen."I think I am stupid, master.""Good," said Wen. "It is fortuitous that you are my apprentice at this time, because if I can teach you, Clodpool, I can teach anyone.”

“It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.”

“You had to deal every day with people who were foolish and lazy and untruthful and downright unpleasant, and you could certainly end up thinking that the world would be considerably improved if you gave them a slap.”