The true story is vicious and multiple and untrue after all. Why do you need it? Don’t ever ask for the true story.

Why are you so interested in amoebas?" "Oh, they're immortal," he said, "and sort of shapeless and flexible. Being a person is getting too complicated.

I am too old to have ever been very worried about what "genre" any given book of mine might be. I read everything. I am easily amused.

Every habit he's ever had is still there in his body, lying dormant like flowers in the desert. Given the right conditions, all his old addictions would burst into full and luxuriant bloom.

You think you have the amount of money that is your credit limit. We're just wired to think that, you know? Until the bill arrives - a sobering moment - you think you're richer than you are.

Neither of us says the word love, not once. It would be tempting fate; it would be romance, bad luck.

Some of our earliest writing, in cuneiform, was about who owes what.