The building of the architecture of a novel - the craft of it - is something I never tire of.

Maybe television causes cancer, Garp thinks; but his real irritation is a writer's irritation: he knows that wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn't reading.

Almost everyone is dying to leave home, eventually; and almost everyone needs to.

Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!

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.

It is your responsibility to find fault with me, it is mine to hear you out. But don't expect me to change.

As it was, things went from bad to worse, as they often will when amateurs are involved in an activity that they perform in bad temper – or in a hurry.