There are so many cities in every single city.

Mother used to say escape is never further than the nearest book. Well, Mumsy, no, not really. Your beloved large-print sagas of rags, riches, and heartbreak were no camouflage against the miseries trained on you by the tennis ball launcher of life, were they? But, yes, Mum, there again, you have a point. Books don’t offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.

As for reading, I wish I had a magic door to a library where I could go in, read for days and days, and come back in the same minute I left. I'm still looking for the door.

We looked at each other for the last time; nothing is as eloquent as nothing.

Human beings need to watch out for reasonless niceness too. It's never reasonless and its reason's not usually nice.

We are only what we know, and I wished to be so much more than I was, sorely.

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