For me, boviscopophobia is an even stronger motive than semi-agoraphobia for staying on the ship when we're in port.

The fun of reading as "an exchange between consciousnesses, a way for human beings to talk to each other about stuff we can't normally talk about."

Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic and a dyslexic?" "I give." "You get someone who stays up all night torturing himself mentally over the question of whether or not there's a dog.

Fiction is one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved.

The parts of me that used to think I was different or smarter or whatever, almost made me die.

[I]f the writer does his job right, what he basically does is remind the reader of how smart the reader is.

When a solipsist dies ... everything goes with him.