“I loathe people who say, 'I always read the ending of the book first.' That really irritates me, It's like someone coming to dinner, just opening the fridge and eating pudding, while you're standing there still working on the starter. It's not on.”

“I want, I want, I want... At this point I'm just a mass of seething wants, but what I want I'm not really sure of. (Like going to the fridge, and opening it, letting all the cold air out...and not knowing what it is you want to eat. You stand with the door open hoping that something will you inspire you.) I'm standing with the door open at the fridge of life, and I want.”

“It's not that I don't like people. It's just that when I'm in the company of others - even my nearest and dearest - there always comes a moment when I'd rather be reading a book.”

“Reading Chekhov, I felt not happy, exactly, but as close to happiness as I knew I was likely to come. And it occurred to me that this was the pleasure and mystery of reading, as well as the answer to those who say that books will disappear. For now, books are still the best way of taking great art and its consolations along with us on a bus.”

“What are you reading?" Owen asks."Charlotte's Web," Liz says. "It's really sad. One of the main characters just died.""You ought to read the book from end to beginning," Owen jokes. "That way, no one dies, and it's always a happy ending.”

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Eat pudding. Books are good. Eat pudding. If kids read a lot. Eat pudding. They'll get so they can think clearly. Eat pudding. And if enough kids read and think. Eat pudding. We will have world peace. Eat pudding. Thank you very much. Eat pudding.”