Life," Garp wrote, "is sadly not structured like a good old-fashioned novel. Instead an end occurs when those who are meant to peter out have petered out. All that is left is memory. But even a nihilist has memory.

You live your life at the time you live it -- you don't have much of an overview when what's happening to you is still happening.

(Baseball) is a game with a lot of waiting in it; it is a game with increasingly heightened anticipation of increasingly limited action

Newspapers are even worse for me than ice cream; headlines, and the big issues that generate the headlines, are pure fat.

Know the story before you fall in love with your first sentence. If you don’t know the story before you begin the story, what kind of a storyteller are you? Just an ordinary kind, just a mediocre kind – making it up as you go along, like a common liar.

The more clearly one sees this world; the more one is obliged to pretend it does not exist.

He also knew that rivals are best unmanned by being ignored.