Most people take who they are, naturally, as a given, and they're interested in the sexual other, but not in being the sexual other. Most men are interested in women - whether sexually or not is not the question - but they don't necessarily want to be a woman.

Books, like people, can't be reduced to the cost of the materials with which they were made. Books, like people, become unique and precious once you get to know them.

If you don't have dreams, how do you maneuver reality? Where do you get the ideas to change reality if not from dreams?

The paths to liberation are numerous, but the bank along the way is always the same, the Bank of Karma, where the liberation account of each of us is credited or debited depending on our actions.

God is universal," spluttered the priest. The imam nodded strong approval. "There is only one God." "And with their one god Muslims are always causing troubles and provoking riots. The proof of how bad Islam is, is how uncivilized Muslims are,: pronounced the pandit. "Says the slave-driver of the cast system," huffed the imam. "Hindus enslave people and worship dressed-up dolls." "They are golden calf lovers. They kneel before the cows," the priest chimed in. "While Christians kneel before a white man! They are flunkies of a foreign god. They are nightmare of all nonwhite people.

[The taxidermist is] a historian, dealing with an animal's past; the zookeeper is a politician, dealing with an animal's present; and everyone else is a citizen who must decide on that animal's future (...) The indifference of the many, combined with the active hatred of the few, has sealed the fate of animals.

A great literary work can be completely, completely unpredictable. Which can sometimes make them very hard to read, but it gives them a great originality.