Quotes from book

Thief of Time

“Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.”

“Sometimes thinking is like talking to another person, but that person is also you.”

“No other species anywhere in the world had invented boredom. Perhaps it was boredom, not intelligence, that had propelled them up to the evolutionary ladder.”

“Oh, where are my manners? Do sit down. Pull up a small child.”

“Questions don't have to make sense, Vincent," said Miss Susan. "But answers do.”

“Things are not as they seem. They are what they are.”

“In order to have a change of fortune at the last minute, you have to take your fortune to the last minute.”

“There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime.”

“Seeing things a human shouldn't have to see makes us human.”

“When you look into the abyss, it’s not supposed to wave back.”

“The thing is, I mean, there’s times when you look at the universe and you think, “What about me?” and you can just hear the universe replying, “Well, what about you?”

“Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em.”

“Sometimes I really think people ought to have to pass a proper exam before they're allowed to be parents. Not just the practical, I mean.”

“When in doubt, choose to live.”

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”

“…'I thought the rule was that all monks were shaved.'

'Oh, Soto says he is bald under the hair,'said Lu Tze. 'He says the hair is a separate creature that just happens to live on him.”