There is a kind of crying I hope you have not experienced, and it is not just crying about something terrible that has happened, but a crying for all of the terrible things that have happened, not just to you but to everyone you know and to everyone you don’t know and even the people you don’t want to know, a crying that cannot be diluted by a brave deed or a kind word, but only by someone holding you as your shoulders shake and your tears run down your face.

Tell me what it is, or prepare to eat harpoon.

A library is like an island in the middle of a vast sea of ignorance, particularly if the library is very tall and the surrounding area has been flooded.

There was something I was always very good at, however, and that was teaching myself not to be frightened while frightening things are going on. It is difficult to do this, but I had learned. It is simply a matter of putting one’s fear aside, like the vegetable on the plate you don’t want to touch until all of your rice and chicken are gone, and getting frightened later, when one is out of danger. Sometimes I imagine I will be frightened for the rest of my life because of all of the fear I put aside during my time in Stain’d-by-the-Sea.

Once more, this is love: it rings and you open up unless it looks like an ax murderer.

That night it felt that somehow by flicking them off the roof, the matches would burn down everything, the sparks from the tips of the flames, torching the world and all the heartbroken people in it.

This is an absurd moral, for you and I both know that sometimes not only is it good to lie, it is necessary to lie.