I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not "true" because we're hungry for another kind of truth: the mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story. Fiction, because it is not about someone who lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself. --From the Introduction

a lot of human behavior was really acting out our responses to dangers long past.

Even the most introverted person alive is constantly hungry for human association

'I could kill you like this,' Peter whispered. 'Just press and press until you're dead'.

Someday stars will wind down or blow up. Someday death will cover us all like the water of a lake and perhaps nothing will ever come to the surface to show that we were ever there. But we WERE there, and during the time we lived, we were alive. That's the truth - what is, what was, what will be - not what could be, what should have been, what never can be.

His vices were the vices of his time and culture, but his virtues transcended the milieu of his life.

Remember, the enemy's gate is down.