Anything could happen in a cosmos that was part math and part magic.

Each man, when he dies, sees the landscape of his own soul.

Death is the ending of all true stories.

I have observed that you treat a man as an old garment to be taken apart and stitched again. Perhaps you could think of him as good cloth, rich fabric that wants only to be embroidered upon. And perhaps, if you will do that, you will see that you love Tailor yourself.

Reality is just this game people play together, something their brain decides on, and the minute their brain gets iffy about reality, they realize everything they know about the world is just their own made-up version of it, and that would mean everyone is walking around in their own made-up world, all alone, and reality is just something we invent together to make us feel not so alone. It scares people when some of us check out of the game.

Doesn’t it make you feel kind of awesome that the world is beautiful for no other apparent reason that that it is? Like beauty has its own secret reason. It doesn’t need human eyes to notice. It just wants to be glorious and unbelievable.

If untimely death came only those who deserved that fate, Keturah, where would choice be? No one would do good for its own sake, but only to avoid an early demise. No one would speak out against evil because of his own courageous soul, but only to live another day. The right to choose is man’s great gift, but one thing is not his to choose – the time and means of death.

The hope of yellow must be nothing to the taste of it, she thought.

Just because you see something doesn’t mean it’s really there.

Demonstrate talent, said Grandmother often to me, and you will still be loved by a husband when beauty has faded.