"He whispered steadily along in this pearly place, but though his steps were steady, a tension had seized him. It was a quivering, high-note vibration rather than a trembling. His flesh did not shake: inside his tightened skin he hummed, making no sound — a silent scream."

"Like a revelation it came to him that it was far, far better to be an Eskimo; that these people didn't know their arse from a hole in the ground, that they had no business here, that his people had lived here and thrived for thousands of years and that they were the People. They were the People and all these were strangers with the habits of children, and they sulked like children because that's what they were. Old Ways were best!"

"The world is full of people whom no one has put in chains but who bind themselves with frozen thoughts and fears. A man whose mind conforms to the conditioned responses of his daily life is a coward and a slave."

"People flock around the sorcerer, the priest, the scientist, the commissar, the psychiatrist, the drug pusher, each generation of the faithful pitying the victims of past fallacies, and this repetitive vanity keeps us stupider than we need to be."

"[...] our confidence in foretelling and influencing events increases in inverse ratio to our ability to do so. The farther we go from ourselves and from the present, the less we sense the probabilities, and it is easy for us to be "dead certain" about things we cannot possibly know anything about."

"During all my wandering through two decades and two continents, I've found nothing more pathetic than the universal misery of young boys trying to charm young girls."

"Strange as it may seem, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it."

"Cultural History suggests that men have always had a greater inclination to close their eyes than to open them, to believe comforting lies rather than disconcerting truths."

"Far from securing order, terror intensifies disorder and social disintegration. Terror, the most extreme form of power, is the least effective, and rulers employ it to the detriment of their own authority."

"There may not always be a way where there's a will, but on the other hand - if success isn't certain, neither is failure."

"People often think that a fiction is something untrue, but this is wrong. The word derives from the Latin fingere, to make. As something made, fiction is different from something discovered, as in physics, or from something that happened, as in the news. But this does not mean it is false. Fiction is about possible selves in possible worlds."

"And I will not ask what all others ask of you - why? Because what I have come to understand is that there is no why. To ask why is to impose expectations on mute existence - expectations it is in no way obliged to meet or even extend. And so I make no more, ask no more."

"Bittersweet creatures : So what is art, that it can enhance social abilities and transform the self? First of all, art is something that lasts and can spread to others. So although one can imagine a lover whispering an improvised poem into her lover’s ear, for the most part a poem will travel in time and space, and last beyond the moment of its conception."

"Publishers are humane men, and rarely commit crimes. Authors, however, are a hardened set, who usually perpertrate a felony every time they issue a book."

"Of all evil-doers, the American is most to be feared. He uses more ingenuity in the planning of his projects and will take greater risks in carrying them out than any other malefactor on earth."

"The present moment is ever the critical time. The future is merely for intelligent forethought."

"Maybe he didn’t know about magic, but he knew about weird."

"All of the mysteries were represented, but it was up to the reader to discover which, out of those thousands of volumes, held a kernel of truth, and which were out-and-out quackeries."

"“What in God’s name….” “I don’t know ’bout you,” Wilson said, “but I don’t think God’s got a whole lot to do with this place.”"

"There are few joys to compare with the telling of a well-told tale."

"But while the tale itself, its truth, is of the utmost importance, it is the telling that allows it to be remembered or forgotten. The trueness of the telling is what makes up a storyteller’s craft."

"Remember the quiet wonders. The world has more need of them than it has for warriors. And this I will tell you as well: One cannot seek to uphold honor in a being that has none."

"While he was out of the room, Tucker sauntered over to the worktable and had a look at the poetry. He read a line here and there, but couldn’t make a lot of sense out of any of it. That was the trouble with poems. It seemed you had to have a doctorate just to understand the references. Still. Some of it had a nice ring to it. …like Manjushri, I have met death, and bear my own victory, though not a sword… Nice. Yeah. If you knew what the hell it meant."

"Watching him, Sara knew that what he said was ninety percent bravado. Still there was nothing wrong with that. Bravery was in knowing the odds and still going against them."

"There's enough weirdness in the world as it is without having to give it supernatural trappings, don't you think?"

"If you understand, things are just as they are. If you do not understand, things are just as they are."

"Nothing’s different, but everything has changed."

"That was the trouble with not paying attention to money. It was never there when you needed it."

"Life’s like art. You have to work hard to keep it simple and still have meaning."

"“Compromise is necessary,” Max agreed, “so long as you never give up who you are. That isn’t compromise; that’s spiritual death. You have to remain true to yourself.”"

"The best artists know what to leave out. They know how much of the support should show through as the pigment is applied, what details aren’t necessary."

"And just because she and her uncle were loaded, that didn’t automatically make them useless as human beings."

"By enlarging your knowledge of things, you will find your knowledge of self is enlarged."

"“You’re confusing me.” “But not deliberately so,” Coyote says. “Let it go on record that any confusion arose simply because we lacked certain commonalities of reference.”"

"You’re not a nun, are you? You haven’t taken one of those absurd vows that cut you off from what otherwise might be a full and healthy human existence?"

"“The thing is,” Coyote says, “nothing’s as easy as we’d like it to be.” “Don’t I know it,” I mutter, but he’s not even listening to me. “And the real trouble comes from not knowing what we really want in the first place.”"

"Only fools think they’re wise; the rest of us just muddle through as we can."

"Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to strive for if everything were known?"

"“Sometimes it feels like we’re living in the middle of a comic book. You know what I mean?” “All too well.” “Thing I always ask,” Tucker said, “is where’s Superman when you need him?”"

"There are people who take the heart out of you, and there are people who put it back."

"I had the same questions for Superman as I did for God: If he was so powerful, why didn’t he deal with some real problems? Why didn’t he stop wars, feed the starving in Ethiopia, cure cancer? At least God had the Church to do His PR work for Him — if you can buy their reasoning, they have any number of explanations ranging from how the troubles of this life build character to that inarguable catchall, “God’s will.” And the crap in this life sure makes heaven look good. When I was growing up, the writers and artists of Superman never even tried to deal with the problem. And since they didn’t, I could only see Superman as a monster, not a hero. I couldn’t believe his battles with criminals, superpowered geniuses and the like. I never believed in God either."

"What I’ve got to talk about, I don’t think a priest wants to hear. What does a priest know or care about secular concerns? All they want to talk about is God. All they want to hear is a tidy list of sins so that they can prescribe their penances and get on to the next customer."

"Our time’s the most precious thing we’ve got to offer folks, and the worst thing a body can do is to take it away from us."

"“Often,” he says, “what we take from the spirit world is only a reflection of what lies inside ourselves.”"

"The real problem is, people think life is a ladder, and it’s really a wheel."

"That dichotomy between who she was and who she thought she should be was what really killed her."

"Wisdom never comes to those who believe they have nothing left to learn."

"It’s the questions we ask, the journey we take to get to where we are going that’s more important than the actual answer. It’s good to have mysteries. It reminds us that there’s more to the world than just making do and having a bit of fun."

"She calls herself Tallulah, but I know who she really is. A name can’t begin to encompass the sum of all her parts. But that’s the magic of names, isn’t it? That the complex, contradictory individuals we are can be called up complete and whole in another mind through the simple sorcery of a name."

"Everybody makes the same mistake. Fortune-telling doesn’t reveal the future; it mirrors the present. It resonates against what your subconscious already knows and hauls it up out of the darkness so that you can get a good look at it."