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

That's how writing works, at least for me: even the stuff that doesn't work out gets funneled into the stuff that does work out.

You cannot invent an algorithm that is as good at recommending books as a good bookseller, and that's the secret weapon of the bookstore - is that no algorithm will ever understand readers the way that other readers can understand readers.

A paper town for a paper girl.

You'll live forever in our hearts, big man. That particularly galled me, because it implied the immortality of those left behind: You will live forever in my memory, because I will live forever! I AM YOUR GOD NOW, DEAD BOY! I OWN YOU!

Just spend a few more months playing video games. That hand-eye coordination will come in handy when you get to third base.

But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail