“Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by other means, or until it kills them. But you, my friends, you found another way: a way to use the pain....”

“Thats what death did, it treated you like a child, like everything you had ever thought and done and cared about was just a childs game, to be crumpled up and thrown away when it was over. It didnt...”

“Like wine, Provenal magic had its own distinctive terroir. It was rich and chaotic and romantic. It was a night-magic, confabulated out of moons and silver, wine and blood, knights and fairies, win...”

“I guess were supposed to have faith.I never really took you for the faith-having kind, Quentin said.I didnt either. But its worked out so far. Weve got five of the seven keys. You cant argue with r...”

“That was the thing about the world: it wasn't that things were harder than you thought they were going to be, it was that they were hard in ways that you didn't expect.”

“We're wired to expect the world to be brighter and more meaningful and more obviously interesting than it actually is. And when we realize that it isn't, we start looking around for the real world.”

“Universities are renowned for their tolerance of unusual characters, especially if they show originality and dedication to their research. I have often made the comment that not only are universiti...”

“To each, or about each, of his colleagues he had said at one time or other, something... something impossible to recall in this or that case and difficult to define in general terms -- some careles...”

“There are times when wisdom cannot be found in the chambers of parliament or the halls of academia but at the unpretentious setting of the kitchen table.”

“Question the answers, I repeated every class. Reevaluate your conclusions when the evidence changes.”

“I wanted that future officer to weigh decisions with a supple mind and to be comfortable with nuance and uncertainty. ”

“Our life is just as long or short as our remembering: as rich as our imagining, as vibrant as our feeling, and as profound as our thinking.”

“I'll bite: Hard science TA's and RA's often repair equipment; it's part of our science. If you want a silver spoon, don't go to grad school. Science is all about dangerous chemicals, semi-safe expe...”