“One has not lived until one has carried a sixty-pound dog down a sweeping flight of stairs at half-past V in the morning.”

“And kissed her for a hundred and sixty-nine years.”

“I think literature totally fails when it has an agenda. - From an interview on the podcast Starship Sofa, December 2010.”

“To do something for someone or something you loved- England or Shakespeare or a dog or the Hodbins or history- wasn't a sacrifice at all. Even if it cost you your freedom, your life, your youth.”

“One of the nastier trends in library management in recent years is the notion that libraries should be 'responsive to their patrons'.”

“There are some things worth giving up anything for, even your freedom, and getting rid of your period is definitely one of them.”

“Actually, writers have no business writing about their own works. They either wax conceited, saying things like: 'My brilliance is possibly most apparent in my dazzling short story, "The Cookiepants Hypotenuse."' Or else they get unbearably cutesy: 'My cat Ootsywootums has given me all my best ideas, hasn't oo, squeezums?”