It had that comfortably sprung, lived-in look that library books with a lively circulation always get; bent page corners, a dab of mustard on page 331, a whiff of some reader's spilled after-dinner whiskey on page 468. Only library books speak with such wordless eloquence of the power good stories hold over us, how good stories abide, unchanged and mutely wise, while we poor humans grow older and slower.

There are lots of guys out there who write a better prose line than I do and who have a better understanding of what people are really like and what humanity is supposed to mean - hell, I know that.

Nobody lives forever, but we all shine on.

Twas something else. I had come to hate her, you see. I had come to wish her dead, and that was what held me back.

He who speaks without an attentive ear is mute.

Just go on dancing with me like this forever and I'll never tire. We'll scrape our shoe on the stars and hang upside down from the moon.

Memories are contrary things; if you quit chasing them and turn your back, they often return on their own.