Come to a book as you would come to an unexplored land. Come without a map. Explore it, and draw your own map.... A book is like a pump. It gives nothing unless first you give to it.

So okay - there you are in your room with the shade down and the door shut and the plug pulled out of the base of the telephone. You've blown up your TV and committed yourself to a thousand words a day, come hell or high water. Now comes the big question: What are you going to write about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want.

I do believe that when we're in the process of dying, that all these emergency circuits in the brain take over. I base what I'm saying not on any empirical evidence. I think it's very possible that when you're dying, these circuits open up, which would explain this whole white-light phenomena - when people clinically die and they see their relatives and stuff and say, "Hello, it's great to see you."

He smiles a lot. But I think there might be worms inside him making him smile.

I felt lonely and content at the same time. I believe that is a rare kind of happiness.

...belief has a second edge. If there are ten thousand medieval peasants who create vampires by believing them real, there may be one - probably a child - who will imagine the stake necessary to kill it. But a stake is only stupid wood; the mind is the mallet which drives it home.

Gordie: Do you think I'm weird? Chris: Definitely. Gordie: No man, seriously. Am I weird? Chris: Yeah, but so what? Everybody's weird