Develop your pawns or Hulk will smash. - Jonathan Lethem

People have to be patient when they're talking to a nervous person.

I am relaxed. It's just buried under layers of incredulity and panic. But underneath those I'm very relaxed.

The thing about this bookshelf is that each of these books is a vast experience unto itself, while also being both self-contained and superbly useless. Reading any one of them doesn't get you anywhere particularly meaningful; you haven't arrived or graduated; you've just gone and done something that passed the time. It's like taking a long walk with a friend who's got a lot to say. There's not cumulative purpose to it - it's just an excellent way to waste your life.