“Everyone thinks writers must know more about the inside of the human head, but that's wrong. They know less, that's why they write. Trying to find out what everyone else takes for granted.”

“Only you pick that crab. Nobody else take it. I already know this. Everyone else want best quality. You thinking different.”

“Being happy with less is what makes a great human being, not a big house with marble floors, or everyone knowing who you are.”

“It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”

“Civilization is the art of living in towns of such size that everyone does not know everyone else.”

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

“The things everyone knows are most likely to be wrong.”

“Dammit, Dresden, if you want to know about me, wait for the autobiography like everyone else.”

“I must learn more about these people―try to understand them, put myself in their place. No, instead I am so busy keeping my head above water that I scarcely know who I am, much less who anyone else is.”

“Well, isn’t Bohemia a place where everyone is as good as everyone else — and must not a waiter be a little less than a waiter to be a good Bohemian?”