I never understood how anyone could feel small compared with the universe. After all, man knows how overwhelmingly large it is, and a few others things besides, and that means he is not small. The fact that man has discovered all this precisely proves his greatness.

Using someone's name during a conversation was like a casual caress, like stroking their hair.

Perhaps, he thought, true pure love, like all flowers, flourished best with its roots in muck and mud. Perhaps that was a law of life that held everything together.

A man who has never been hungry may possess a more refined palate, but he has no idea what it means to eat.

All cows were like other cows, all tigers like all other tigers - What on earth happened to human beings?

If you find life absurd, shouldn’t you find death precisely meaningful?

That question is too good to spoil with an answer.