I am compulsive about writing, I need to do it the way I need sleep and exercise and food and sex; I can go without it for a while, but then I need it.

Ted Seabrooke, my wrestling coach, had a kind of Nietzschean effect on me in terms of not just his estimation of my limited abilities, but his decidedly philosophical stance about how to conduct your life, what you should do to compensate for your limitations. This was essential to me, both as a student - and not a good one - and as a wrestler who was not a natural athlete but who had found something he loved.

All I say is: Let us leave les folles alone; let's just leave them be. Don't judge them. You are not superior to them - don't put them down.

The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life led by human beings; the second was that human beings could survive a life in hotels.

To each other, we were as normal and nice as the smell of bread. We were just a family. In a family even exaggerations make perfect sense.

You know, everybody dies. My parents died. Your father died. Everybody dies. I'm going to die too. So will you. The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure having a life

This was not of the nature of a Christlike lesson for Owen Meany to learn, as he lay in the manger, that someone you hate can give you a hard-on.