We gotta do something about this frigging swing set,' he said. 'I'm telling you, it's ninety percent of the problem.

But as for me: I must ask the wounded man where he is hurt, because I cannot become the wounded man. The only wounded man I can be is me.

The nature of the labyrinth, I scribbled into my spiral notebook, and the way out of it. This teacher rocked. I hated discussion classes. I hated talking, and I hated listening to everyone else stumble on their words and try to phrase things in the vaguest possible way so they wouldn't sound dumb, and I hated how it was all just a game of trying to figure out what the teacher wanted to hear and then saying it. I'm in class, so teach me.

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've read a lot of bad books. I used to review books for a living, and when you're a reviewer you read tons of terrible books.

Keys show up when you reconcile yourself to the bus.

The nature of impending fatherhood is that you are doing something that you're unqualified to do, and then you become qualified while doing it.