He has to find more and better ways of occupying his time. His time, what a bankrupt idea, as if he's been given a box of time belonging to him alone, stuffed to the brim with hours and minutes that he can spend like money. Trouble is, the box has holes in it and the time is running out, no matter what he does with it.

She had her reasons. Not that they were the same as anybody else's reasons.

We thought we were running away from the grownups, and now we are the grownups.

Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don't fit in?

If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. You'd be a stone. You'd never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You'd never love anyone, ever again. You'd never dare to.

Even an obvious fabrication is some comfort when you have few others.

Heroes need monsters to establish their heroic credentials. You need something scary to overcome.