“There was no more dangerous kind of madman than one who devoted a good brain and a courageous heart to unhealthy ambitions.”

“Heroes betray us. By having them, in real life, we betray ourselves.”

“Corum knew that he was mad, in Vadhagh terms. But he supposed that he was sane enough in Mabden terms. And this was, after all, now a Mabden world. He must learn to accept its peculiar disorders as normal, if he were going to survive.”

“For the mind of man alone is free to explore the lofty vastness of the cosmic infinite, to transcend ordinary consciousness, to roam the secret corridors of the brain where past and future melt into one... And universe and individual are linked, the one mirrored in the other, and each contains the other.”

“Time is the enemy of identity”

“We were all serious readers, sitting on wooden chairs at rows of lecterns, turning the pages, united in mutual love of isolation.”

“You Mabden seem to think that happiness must be bought with misery... It is not easy for Vadhagh to understand that. We believe -- believed -- that happiness was a natural condition of reasoning beings.”

“When gods die, self-respect buds', murmured Orland Fank. 'Gods and their examples are not needed by those who respect themselves and, consequently, respect others. Gods are for children, for little, fearful people, for those who would have no responsibility to themselves or their fellows.”

“Therefore it seemed a dreadful injustice that these wise races should perish at the hands of creatures who were still little more than animals. It was as if vultures feasted on and squabbled over the paralyzed body of the youthful poet who could only stare at them with puzzled eyes as they slowly robbed him of an exquisite existence they would never appreciate, never know they were taking.”

“Why should their pain produce such marvelous beauty? he wonders. Or is all beauty created through pain? Is that the secret of great art, both human and Melnibonen?”

“The subtlest lie of all is the full truth.”