“All these words are just a front. What I would really like to do is chain you to my body, then sing for days and days and days.”

“Would you like to see the menu?" he said, "or would you like meet the Dish of the Day?"...“Good evening,” it lowed and sat back heavily on its haunches, “I am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in parts of my body?”

“Can you imagine what it would be like to know that your life was just going to be a series of days that were all the same, that were do-overs?”

“People ask me all the time why I write. I do realize that one day I will have to answer this question, most likely in front of a large crowd. But how do you tell the truth when you struggle just to write it? How do you admit that the words are just salve to the things you are too afraid to say?”

“My soul would sing of metamorphoses.But since, o gods, you were the source of thesebodies becoming other bodies, breatheyour breath into my book of changes: maythe song I sing be seamless as its wayweaves from the world's beginning to our day.”

“There are days when you don't feel like running. Those are the days you have to do it. Discipline is doing what you don't want to do so you can do what you really want to do. Got that?”