The worst thing about the fantasies of the mentally ill is that they're so damned consistent. They never let up. They never give you any rest.

Two sides of the same coin, but which side is which?

When have you ever seen someone who had no doubts who was also correct about anything?

We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction.

One bachelor is an irritation. Ten thousand bachelors are a war.

In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.

I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don’t want to go through what you’ve been through to get there.