He glanced back at the wall. How like a mirror, too, her face. Impossible; for how many people did you know who reflected your own light to you? People were more often--he searched for a simile, found one in his work--torches, blazing away until they whiffed out. How rarely did other people's faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought?

First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him.

..holding a book but reading the empty spaces.

I want to hold onto this funny thing. God, it's gotten big on me. I don't know what it is. I'm so damned unhappy, I'm so mad, and I don't know why. I feel like I'm putting on weight. I feel fat. I feel like I'm saving a lot of things, and I don't know what. I might even start reading books.

Your mind's always juggling, isn't it?-mirrors, torches, plates.

I think we're doing a dreadful job of educating.

I'm interested in having fun with ideas, throwing them up in the air like confetti and then running under them.