“The great inventions would have not become a reality if their inventors listened to criticism or paid attention to people who tried to hold them back on their dreams. I advice you only share your dreams with those who think that you are extraordinary, not ordinary.”

“It’s an enormous wall that’s built between you and your dreams. And if every day, you just chip away… It may take ten years, but eventually you just might see some light.”

“We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it’s there for emergencies but he hopes he’ll never have to use it.”

“if you think they didn’t go crazy in tiny rooms just like you’re doing now without women without food without hope then you’re not ready. ”

“Writing this book took almost as much growth as living the life necessary to put the words down on the page.”

“If you don’t have an ego then you must surely have a beautiful life.”

“Think, Believe, Dream, and Dare.”

“The Second Koran tells us that the darkness in ourselves is a sinister thing. It waits until we relax, it waits until we reach the most vulnerable moments, and then it snares us. I want to be dutiful. I want to do what I should. But when I go back to the tube, I think of where I am going; to that small house and my empty room. What will I do tonight? Make more paper flowers, more wreaths? I am sick of them. Sick of the Nekropolis.I can take the tube to my mistress’ house, or I can go by the street where Mardin’s house is. I’m tired. I’m ready to go to my little room and relax. Oh, Holy One, I dread the empty evening. Maybe I should go by the street just to fill up time. I have all this empty time in front of me. Tonight and tomorrow and the week after and the next month and all down through the years as I never marry and become a dried-up woman. Evenings spent folding paper. Days cleaning someone else’s house. Free afternoons spent shopping a bit, stopping in tea shops because my feet hurt. That is what lives are, aren’t they? Attempts to fill our time with activity designed to prevent us from realizing that there is no meaning?”

“President Trump’s people are merely demonstrating to the world what has been known to fraud researchers for a very long time: Engaging in lies and fraud is a normal aspect of corporate government.”

“Now there are four chief obstacles in grasping truth, which hinder every man, however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to learning, namely, submission to faulty and unworthy authority, influence of custom, popular prejudice, and concealment of our own ignorance accompanied by an ostentatious display of our knowledge.”

“Hope is a psychological mechanism unaffected by external realities.”

“You think it’s so great to die and make everyone cry and carry on. Well it ain’t.”

“Once you start recognizing the truth of your story, finish the story. It happened but you’re still here, you’re still capable, powerful, you’re not your circumstance. It happened and you made it through. You’re still fully equipped with every single tool you need to fulfill your purpose.”