I had a Viking sense of entitlement to whatever provisions I could plunder.

And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary?

I was about 13, in some ways, when I wrote the first book. Approximately 18 when I wrote the second.

It was a way of recognizing places of enchantment: people falling asleep like this.

Our lives look a lot more interesting when they’re filtered through the sexy Facebook interface. We star in our own movies, we photograph ourselves incessantly, we click the mouse and a machine confirms our sense of mastery.

Mr. Franzen said he and Mr. Wallace, over years of letters and conversations about the ethical role of the novelist, had come to the joint conclusion that the purpose of writing fiction was “a way out of loneliness.” (NY Times article on the memorial service of David Foster Wallace.)

It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.