“If you can find out the nature of Maya, the universal illusion, it will leave you just as a thief runs away when detected.”

“If you run away from a thing just because you don't like it, you don't like what you find either.”

“Now, for the first time, he's seeing that there really is a way out of this, and it's all so simple. You don't have to run away. You just meet somebody special and step sideways into a parallel universe.”

“Always leave a way out, unless you really want to find out how hard a man can fight when he’s nothing to lose.”

“But policing, crime prevention and detection, is a Red Queen’s race: You have to run as fast as you possibly can just to stand still. You can collar criminals until the cows come home, and there’ll still be a never-ending supply of greedy fuckwits and chancers. It’s like there’s a law of nature: Not only is the job never done, the job can never be done.”

“Age is terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back”

“But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.”

“Pick-a-lock, Pick-a-lock, you'll regret the day,
When you took a mouse thief and locked him away,
Silly cat, look at that, it's two for one,
A thief and a warrior, by dawn will be gone.”

“The withering away of illusions is a long and dreary process, like a toothache. But you can pull out a tooth. Illusions, dead, continue to rot within us. And stink. And you can't escape them. I carry all of mine around with me.”

“Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.”