Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.

...it occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again.

You realize that trying to keep your distance from me will not lessen my affection for you. All efforts to save me from you will fail.

Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in the back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home.

[This] is very important to remember when reading or writing or talking or whatever: You are never, ever choosing whether to use symbols. You are choosing which symbols to use.

Because it's kind of great, being an idea that everybody likes. But I could never be the idea to myself, not all the way.

I didn’t need you, you idiot. I picked you. And then you picked me back.