“Books are a social substitute; you read people who, at one level, you'd like to hang out with. [David Foster Wallace]'s writing self--it's most pronounced in his essays--was the best friend you'd ever have, spotting everything, whispering jokes, sweeping you past what was irritating or boring or awful in humane style.”

“You think of the book you'd most like to be reading, and then you sit down and shamelessly write it.”

“Who's Mrs. Gummidge?''If you're a good girl and get well soon I'll lend you the book.''Oh, somebody in a book! All you people like Nilla and the Cornishes and that man Darcourt seem to live out of books. As if everything was in books!''Well, Schnak, just about everything is in books. No, that's wrong. We recognize in books what we've met in life. But if you'd read a few books you wouldn't have to meet everything as if it had never happened before, and take every blow right on the chin. You'd see a few things coming...”

“This car was speically ordered for you, Mr. Flamel." There was a pause and the voice added, "The author of one of the most boring books I have ever read, The Philosophic Summary."Boring?" Nicholas yanked the door open and pushed the twins into the gloom. "It's been acknowledged for centuires as a work of a genius!" Climbing in, he slammed the door. Franis probably told you to say that."You'd better buckel up," the driver commanded. "We've got all sorts of company heading this way, none of it friendly and all of it unpleasant.”

“Happiness is hanging with friends who know you way more than you'd care to share.”

“If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. You'd be a stone. You'd never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You'd never love anyone, ever again. You'd never dare to.”