Augustus," I said. "Really. You don't have to do this." "Sure I do," he said. "I found my Wish." "God, you're the best," I told him. "I bet you say that to all the boys who finance your international travel," he answered.

Amsterdam is like the rings of a tree: It gets older as you get closer to the center.

He liked the idea of coffee quite a lot—a warm drink that gave you energy and had been for centuries associated with sophisticates and intellectuals. But coffee itself tasted to him like caffeinated stomach bile.

There's a stark difference between the words 'prodigy' and 'genius.' Prodigies can very quickly learn what other people have already figured out; geniuses discover that which no one has ever previously discovered. Prodigies learn; geniuses do.

Depression is a side effect of dying. (Almost everything is, really).

Don’t make stuff because you want to make money - it will never make you enough money. And don’t make stuff because you want to get famous - because you will never feel famous enough. Make gifts for people - and work hard on making those gifts in the hope that those people will notice and like the gifts.

Every second of your definitionally temporary consciousness, you are choosing how you spend something that will not last forever.