"Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and adventures are the shadow truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes and forgotten."

"Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals."

"A nice, easy place for freedom of speech to be eroded is comics, because comics are a natural target whenever an election comes up."

"You can take for granted that people know more or less what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an oak tree look like. Tell them what makes this one different."

"It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others."

"He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled."

"An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done."

"If you've got a talent, protect it."