The job of the novel is to be true to the confusion, but not so confusing that you turn the reader off.

A bee rose up from a sun-filled paper cup, off to make slum honey from some diet root beer it had found inside.

Books: a beautifully browsable invention that needs no electricity and exists in a readable form no matter what happens.

There is no good word for stomach; just as there is no good word for girlfriend. Stomach is to girlfriend as belly is to lover, and as abdomen is to consort, and as middle is to petite amie.

Maybe the Kindle was the Bowflex of bookishness: something expensive that, when you commit to it, forces you to do more of whatever it is you think you should be doing more of.

Spoon the sauce over the ice cream. It will harden. This is what you have been working for.

Wikipedia is just an incredible thing. It is fact-encirclingly huge, and it is idiosyncratic, careful, messy, funny, shocking and full of simmering controversies - and it is free, and it is fast.