The worst thing in the world is having to go back to the dark you shook off.

When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier.

Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. This is why we must close them up into thick, solid books, so they cannot get out and cause trouble.

It is harder, usually, to find a person who wants to walk the streets of me, to taste the teas of my country, to... immigrate, you could say.

I’ve a devil of a habit for being right.

The rapt pupil will be forgiven for assuming the Tsar of Death to be wicked and the Tsar of Life to be virtuous. Let the truth be told: There is no virtue anywhere. Life is sly and unscrupulous, a blackguard, wolfish, severe. In service to itself, it will commit any offense. So, too, is Death possessed of infinite strategies and a gaunt nature- but also mercy, also grace and tenderness. In his own country, Death can be kind.

That’s what happens to friends, eventually. They leave you. It’s practically what they’re for.