What a lost person needs is a map of the territory, with his own position marked on it so he can see where he is in relation to everything else.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer, an almost physical nerve, the kind you need to walk a log across a river.

There's a difference between describing and evoking something. You can describe something and be quite clinical about it. To evoke it, you call it up in the reader. That's what writers do when they're good.

All fat women look the same; they all look 42.

But the adjectives change,” said Jimmy. “Nothing’s worse than last year’s adjectives.

We are very short on organs, and the pig solution is probably a lot better than the human clone solution - though maybe not for the pigs.

Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.