“What would motivate someone to sit alone in a one-room apartment reading and thinking? What would have to be true of a person for them to consider that a life well spent?”

“What if the places you went and the things you encountered in your work were more interesting than what was available in the physical world around you?”

“They knew many things but had no idea why. And strangely this made them more, rather than less, certain that they were right.”

“I am tormented, or tantalized, by the sense that I am almost in view of something that is at the limit of my comprehension.” — Neal Stephenson’s Anathem (pg 543)

“All the story had been bled out of their lives.” (pg 414)

“…in the intervening hours, my brain had been changing to fit the new shape of my world. I guess that’s why we can’t do anything when we’re sleeping: it’s when we work hardest.” (pg 366)

“…we do not perceive the physical universe directly, but only through the intermediation of our sensory organs.” (pg 529)