The problem with growing up," Quentin said, "is that once you're grown up, people who aren't grown up aren't fun anymore. - Lev Grossman

A big silvery janitor. Penny, this can't be how the universe works."
"In the Order we call it 'inverse profundity.' We've observed it in any number of cases. The deeper you go into the cosmic mysteries, the less interesting everything gets.

I just thought of this—it’s the American university system. This is my new theory: the New Feudalism. You go to college and you get used to living like some kind of medieval overlord, with people waiting on you and everything, and it warps your mind. It happens to everybody. By the time you graduate you have all the personal habits of an aristocrat, and none of the money. No wonder you’re dysfunctional—you’re a twentieth-century office temp who’s channeling a nobleman in the British Raj.

He couldn’t ignore how conspicuously beautiful Venice was. People had been living here for what, a thousand years? More? God only knew whose crazy idea it was to build a city in the middle of a lagoon, but you couldn’t argue with the results.