“Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the world is made up of all kinds of people.”

“I don't know -- maybe the world has two different kinds of people, and for one kind the world is this completely logical, rice pudding place, and for the other it's all hit-or-miss macaroni gratin.”

“It was a narrow world, a world that was standing still. But the narrower it became, the more it betook of stillness, the more this world that enveloped me seemed to overflow with things and people that could only be called strange. They had been there all the while, it seemed, waiting in the shadows for me to stop moving. And every time the wind-up bird came to my yard to wind its spring, the world descendedmore deeply into chaos.”

“Or maybe the ... shock of it started me covering up all kinds of memories the way a squirrel hides a nut and forgets where he's buried it.”

“When I was younger all kinds of people talked to me,” shesaid. “Told me all sorts of things. Fascinating stories, beautiful,strange stories. But past a certain point nobody talked to meany more. No one. Not my husband, my child, my friends …no one. Like there was nothing left in the world to talk about.Sometimes I feel like my body’s turning invisible, like you cansee right through me.”

“Like a Chinese box, the world of the novel contained smaller worlds, and inside those were yet smaller worlds. Together, these worlds made up a single universe, and the universe waited there in the book to be discovered by the reader.”

“All he had ever prayed for was the ability to catch outfield flies, in answer to which God had bestowed upon him a penis that was bigger than anybody else's. What kind of world came up with such idiotic bargains?”