“What was the point of having a situation worthy of fiction if the protagonist didn't behave as he would have done in a book?”

“It is only in fiction that the protagonist moves in a single minded, one point focus, screening out everything that isn't related to the plot. Real people have to deal with the Myrtles of this world, who have sciatica and cold sores and want to tell you about them”

“Indy Rivers got things done. Maybe she was a fictional character, but they were in a fictional place, in a fictional situation. There were worse things to be than fictional.”

“If you have not done things worthy of being written about, at least write things worthy of being read.”

“At last, however, he began to think -- as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too . . .”

“We were not having any fun, he had recently begun pointing out. I would take exception (didn't we do this, didn't we do that) but I had also known what he meant. He meant doing things not because we were expected to do them or had always done them or should do them but because we wanted to do them. He meant wanting. He meant living.”