The urge to make art or contemplate philosophy does not go away when you are sick. Those urges just become transfigured by illness.

I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep... Just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.

He may be a malevolent sorcerer, but Tiny Cooper is his own goddamned man, and if he wants to be a gigantic skipper, then that's his right as a huge American.

What I eventually realized is that the real business of books is not done by awards committees or people who turn trees into paper or editors or agents or even writers. We're all just facilitators. The real business is done by readers.

"I think forever is an incorrect concept," I answered. He smirked. "You're an incorrect concept." "I know. That's why I'm being taken out of the rotation".

Last words are always harder to remember when no one knows that someone's about to die.

I smiled. She smiled. I believed the smile.