What do I miss? Second-hand bookshops where I can find things I had no idea I wanted. AbeBooks helps, but it doesn't have that smell.

People are obscenities. Would rather be music than be a mass of tubes squeezing semisolids around itself for a few decades before becoming so dribblesome it'll no longer function.

The better organized the state, the duller its humanity.

Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword.

Secrets affect you more than you’d think. You lie to keep them hidden. You steer talk away from them. You worry someone’ll discover yours and tell the world. You think you are in charge of the secret, but isn’t it the secret who’s actually using you?

Taro taught me that people respect spirit, but even cowards don't respect cowards.

Writing is probably one-fifth coming up with the stuff, and four-fifths self-editing again and again and again.