You could know the what of something forever and never discover the why.

Once you realize there's less logic in human institutions than you once thought, you see the narrative potential in just about everything around you. Sometimes, in fact, it seems as if the human world runs on inefficiency and erratic behavior.

The map had been the first form of misdirection, for what is a map but a way of emphasizing some things and making other things invisible?

History has shown us all too often the consequences of dreaming poorly or not at all.

Imbuing fiction with a life that extends beyond the last word is in some ways the goal: the ending that goes beyond the ending in the reader's mind, so invested are they in the story.

That's how the madness of the world tries to colonize you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality.

I think I got a complete picture of what the lives of scientists are like. My father is of the opinion that if scientists are allowed to follow their nose, eventually it results in something. Unfortunately that doesn't always happen. What I came out of it with, in a non-cynical way, was that the scientific process is as messy as anything else. There's nothing wrong with that. That's just the way it is.