“Average people didn't analyze what they thought: they thought they thought, and half of it was gut reaction.”

“I am far more provoked at being thought foolish by foolish people, than pleased at being thought sensible by sensible people; and the average proportion of the numbers of each is not to my advantage.”

“The reaction against your own thought in itself lends life to thought. How this reaction is born is hard to describe, because it identifies with the very rare intellectual tragedies.”

“How had it happened, Simon thought, that he was bound to these people—to people who thought of him as nothing more than a Downworlder, half human at best?”

“The reaction against your own thought in itself lends life to thought. How this reaction is born is hard to describe, because it identifies with the very rare intellectual tragedies. ––The tension, the degree and level of intensity of a thought proceeds from its internal antinomies, which in turn are derived from the unsolvable contradictions of a soul. Thought cannot solve the contradictions of the soul. As far as linear thinking is concerned, thoughts mirror themselves in other thoughts, instead of mirroring a destiny.”

“I didn't know that other people thought things about me. I didn't know that they looked.”

“they thought I had guts
they were wrong
I was only frightened of
more important things”

“Eve didn't choose to eat the apple. She was tempted by the serpent."
"Yes," I argue, thoughts coming out half-formed. "But… she didn't have to take a bite. She chose to.”

“Dreams should make you think, ‘If I had the guts to do it and I didn’t care what anybody thought, this I what I’d really do’.”

“Poetry, she thought, wasn't written to be analyzed; it was meant to inspire without reason, to touch without understanding.”