All his life, Klaus had believed that if you read enough books, you could solve any problem, but now he wasn't so sure.

The only thing he cares about.

You may be right,' she said, a phrase which here meant 'I’m wrong, but I don’t have the courage to say so.

A newspaper, as I'm sure you know, is a collection of supposedly true stories written down by writers who either saw them happen or talked to people who did. These writers are called journalists, and like telephone operators, butchers, ballerinas, and people who clean up after horses, journalists can sometimes make mistakes.

The file clanked against me, my stupid idea nobody would have gotten had I ever done it. You even wouldn't have gotten it, Ed, I thought, watching her go. It's why we broke up, so here it is. Ed, how could you?

The thing you hope will never happen to you might just happen to someone else instead, who has been spending their life dreading the thing that will happen to you.

Adverbs is a book about love, and I thought that was pretty cheerful, but people who are reading it now are telling me that it's actually quite dark.