“The rearing of children is considered too important to be left to the individual and should be the responsibility of the state.”

“I've nothing against eye make-up and lipstick. But the fact is that we’re actually living on a planet in space. For me that’s an extraordinary thought. It’s mind-boggling just to think about the existence of space at all. But there are girls who can’t see the universe for eye liner.”

“She sent me a sunny smile, and what a smile, George; it was a smile that could have melted the whole world, because if the whole world had seen it, it would have had the power to stop all wars and hatred on the face of the planet, or at lease there would have been some long ceasefires.”

“I can wait until my heart bleeds with sorrow.”

“We are the universe.”

“But what is a person, George? How much is a person worth? Are we nothing but dust that is whipped up and spread to the winds?”

“The truth is that I feel like a ghost already, and I have to catch my breath each time I think about it. I begin to understand why ghosts go in for so much sighing and hooting. It's not to scare their descendants. It's just that they find it so hard to breathe in a time other than their own.We don't only have a place in existence. We also have an allotted span.That's the way things are, and all I can do is extrapolate from what's around me now.”

“Although I've always been easily led by my imagination, I was, and I remain, a rational person.”

“Look at the world, Georg, look at the world before you've filled yourself with too much physics and chemistry.”

“I no longer feel the need to see and sense more than I've already experienced. I just want so desperately to hang on what I have.”

“But sorrow can also be contagious. Fear is different. It isn't as communicable as laughter or sadness, and a good thing too. Fear is almost entirely a lonely thing.”