Chapter I

• "When you get to topos theory you are at the edge of another universe. You have found a place to stand where you can look back at the world from nowhere. It's not just some gestalt. It's fundamental." (p. 14)
• "If you get committed you get certified but if you commit yourself you dont." (p. 14)
• "I spent a certain amount of time on game theory. There's something seductive about it. "(p. 20)
• "The more naive your life the more frightening your dreams. Your unconscious will keep trying to wake you. In every sense. Imperilment is bottomless. As long as you are breathing you can always be more scared." (p. 22)
• "That there is little joy in the world is not just a view of things. Every benevolence is suspect. You finally figure out that the world does not have you in mind. It never did." (p. 24)
• "Most people manage to live out their allotted days in something other than a state of despair." (p. 24)
• "The world has created no living thing that it does not intend to destroy." (p. 24)
• "the unpleasant truth that the world doesnt know you're here." (p. 27)
• "I think the more spiritual view seeks grace in anonymity. To be celebrated is to set the table for grief and despair." (p. 27)
• "Do we deserve to exist? Who said that it was a privilege?" (p. 27)
• "How many people if they could snap their fingers and vanish would do so?" (p. 29)
• "Mental illness differs from physical illness in that the subject of mental illness is always and solely information." (p. 30)
• "She certainly didnt know that the word prodigy comes from the Latin word for monster." (p. 31)

Chapter II

• "Children are fearful creatures." (p. 37)
• "Schopenhauer says somewhere that if the entire universe should vanish the only thing left would be music." (p. 38)
• "One of the problems is that each memory is the memory of the memory before." (p. 39)
• "understood for the first time that the visual world was inside your head. All the world, in fact." (p. 39)
• "Among the problems the therapist faces is that the patient may have no desire to be healed." (p. 52)
• "Darwin's question remains unanswered. How do we come by mental abilities that have no history? How is it that the brain seems to prepare for what's coming? No idea. How much of the brain's circuitry is undedicated, simply awaiting the arrival of new opportunities?" (p. 55)

Chapter IV

• "When all trace of our existence is gone, for whom then will this be a tragedy?" (p. 114)

Chapter V

• "Klang associations." (p. 126) -> a communication pattern where speech is linked by the similar sound of words rather than their meaning
• "Spengler's Decline of the West." (p. 133) #followup/book-rec

Chapter VI

• "friend once told me that those who choose a love that can never be fulfilled will be hounded by a rage that can never be extinguished." (p. 164)

Chapter VII

• "eidolon?" (p. 171) -> an idealized person or thing; a specter or phantom
• "The arrival of language was like the invasion of a parasitic system. Co-opting those areas of the brain that were the least dedicated. The most susceptible to appropriation." (p. 174)