Authors, he thought. Even the sane ones are nuts.

Coincidence was a concept he did not entirely trust. As someone who had spent his life exploring the hidden interconnectivity of disparate emblems and ideologies, Langdon viewed the world as a web of profoundly intertwined histories and events. The connections may be invisible, he often preached to his symbology classes at Harvard, but they are always there, buried just beneath the surface.

Wealth is commonplace but wisdom is rare. I beg you to remember that wealth without wisdom can often end in disaster.

Of course you can't stop. It is physically impossible for the human mind to think of nothing. The soul craves emotion, and it will continue to seek fuel for that emotion-good or bad. Your problem is that you're giving it the wrong fuel.

Sometimes all it takes is a tiny shift of perspective to see something familiar in a totally new light.

Pain is a part of growing-up. It is how we learn.

Denial is a critical part of the human coping mechanism. Without it, we would all wake up terrified every morning about all the ways we could die. Instead, our minds block out our existential fears by focusing on stresses we can handle—like getting to work on time or paying our taxes.