Descartes, the Frenchman, had little trouble knowing that he existed.

Narrative living is the beginning of rhetoric.

Stealing ideas from contemporaries is rude and tasteless. Stealing from the long dead is considered literary and admirable. The same is true of grave-robbing. Loot your local cemetery and find yourself mired in social awkwardness. But unearth the tomb of an ancient king and you can feel free to pop off his toe rings. You’ll probably end up on a book tour, or bagging an honorary degree or two.

Understand this: we are both tiny and massive. We are nothing more than molded clay given breath, but we are nothing less than divine self-portraits, huffing and puffing along mountain ranges of epic narrative arcs prepared for us by the Infinite Word Himself. Swell with pride and gratitude, for you are tiny and given much. You are as spoken by God as the stars. You stand in history with stories stretching out both behind and before. We.

If you knew the meaning of life, would you necessarily like it?

Stories are like catechisms, but they’re catechisms for your impulses, they’re catechisms with flesh on.

Marx called religion an opiate, and all too often it is. But philosophy is an anaesthetic, a shot to keep the wonder away.

Anastasia reached the attic stairs, slowed down, and listened. She knew that the first step to asking about secrets is seeing how much you can find out by sneaking.

Caves and darkness can’t hold you when you die, they can only hold your bones.

Going where no man has gone before is more difficult than it sounds. Our cousins and ancestors were no less curious than we are, and were perhaps bolder. This world is their tomb. You should look under the bed.