All the characters are made out of words. With reading, I understand that the people aren't real but the fact that they are made out of language and are made out of words is extremely powerful to me. It becomes transformative for me. Different people have different ways of trying to make stories using language.

Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.

All the characters are made out of words. With reading, I understand that the people aren't real but the fact that they are made out of language and are made out of words is extremely powerful to me. It becomes transformative for me. Different people have different ways of trying to make stories using language.

That is the fear: I have lost something important, and I cannot find it, and I need it. It is fear like if someone lost his glasses and went to the glasses store and they told him that the world had run out of glasses and he would just have to do without.

Why is it upset? Shouldn't it be downset?

When we think of death, we often imagine it as happening in degrees: We think of a sick person becoming less and less alive until finally they are gone.

I am in the midst of a soliloquy! I wrote this out and memorized it and if you interrupt me I will completely screw it up,' Augustus interrupted. 'Please to be eating your sandwich and listening.