You must go on a long journey before you can really find out how wonderful home is.

Before we left, Grandmother talked a lot about the arctic night we would fly through. 'Isn't it a mystical word, "arctic"? Pure and quite hard. And meridians. Isn't that pretty? We're going to fly along them, faster than the light can follow us... Time won't be able to catch us.

It is simply this: do not tire, never lose interest, never grow indifferent—lose your invaluable curiosity and you let yourself die. It's as simple as that.

... 'I've been doing everything for an awfully long time, and I've seen and lived as hard as I could, and it's been unbelievable, I tell you, unbelievable. But now I have the feeling everything's gliding away from me, and I don't remember, and I don't care, and yet now is right when I need it!'. [pp. 84-85]

They were always doing something. Quietly, without interruption, and with great concentration, they carried on with the hundred-and-one small things that made up their world.

Making a journey by night is more wonderful than anything in the world.

She started thinking about all the euphemisms for death, all the anxious taboos that had always fascinated her. It was too bad you could never have an intelligent discussion on the subject. People were either too young or too old, or else they didn't have time.