Drosselmeier had unwittingly exposed himself to an overdose of reality, and it had destroyed his reason.

Vengeful as nature herself, she loves her children only in order to devour them better and if she herself rips her own veils of self-deceit, Mother perceives in herself untold abysses of cruelty as subtle as it is refined.

Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people.

The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind only if he arrives there in full possession of his partial faculties--that is, providing he is perfectly aware of the precise nature of sight and does not confuse it with second sightnor with madness.

A book is simply the container of an idea-like a bottle; what is inside the book is what matters.

The tiger will never lie down with the lamb; he acknowledges no pact that is not reciprocal. The lamb must learn to run with the tigers.

Stars on our door, stars in our eyes, stars exploding in the bits of our brains where the common sense should have been