Part of him wanted to weep... but his purpose was rigid within him. He felt he could not bend to gentleness without breaking.

We need metaphors of magic and monsters in order to understand the human condition.

I had no intention of pursuing either the characters or the setting further.

Are you a person—with volition and maybe some stubbornness and at least the capacity if not the actual determination to do something surprising—or are you a tool? A tool just serves its user. It’s only as good as the skill of its user, and it’s not good for anything else. So if you want to accomplish something special—something more than you can do for yourself—you can’t use a tool. You have to use a person and hope the surprises will work in your favor. You have to use something that’s free to not be what you had in mind.

Whatever the explanation, it's perfectly obvious that our educational system has nothing to do with education: it's a babysitting service designed to replicate the worst qualities of the parents.

Futility is the defining characteristic of life.

It is wrong to ask for more than you give freely. In this way, we come to resemble what we hate.