“All right, he thought, so the details were not perfect. But maybe, in a sense, that was part of the magic, too.”

“Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail.”

“These Chinese novels are not perfect according to Western standards. They are not always planned from beginning to end, nor are they compact, any more than life is planned or compact. They are often too long, too full of incident, too crowded with character, a medley of fact and fiction as to material, and a medley of romance and realism as to method, so that an impossible event of magic or dream may be described with such exact semblance of detail that one is compelled to belief against all reason”

“Everything is true,' he said. 'Everything anybody has ever thought.'

'Will you be all right?'

'I'll be all right,' he said, and thought, And I'm going to die. Both those are true, too.”

“Keep a demon busy, I thought. Right. Maybe he fancies a game of Tiddlywinks.”

“They were not holding hands, but their shadows were. Sethe looked to her left and all three of them were gliding over the dust holding hands. Maybe he was right. A life.”

“The myth of the Pujas is a simple one – full of rural sweetness. … The Pujas are, in part, an ever-returning homage to that magical sense of being rescued, so indispensable to children.”

“He smiled, and suddenly she knew that his words were true. Everything would be all right. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Tragedy couldn't coexist in a world with one of Colin's smiles.”

“"Perfect Sense (part I)" on Amused to Death (Roger Waters, 1992)”

“Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often.”