“The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,′ said the owl. – I always sleep during the day.
‘That’s weird,’ said the duck. – At night you sleep.
– Sleep at night, you say? No way! The night is too exciting to be spent sleeping. It’s when it’s dark, it’s when your eyes get wide, and you expect something to eat.”
“So If the water genie told Haroun about the Ocean of the Stream of Stories, and even though he was full of a sense of hopelessness and failure the magic of the Ocean began to have an effect on Haroun. ”
“There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name. It stood by a mournful sea full of glumfish, which were so miserable to eat that they made people belch with melancholy even though the skies were blue.”