“If I ever saw my muse she would be an old woman with a tight bun and spectacles poking me in the middle of the back and growling, "Wake up and write the book!”

“An old woman with a mutch sat in an arm-chair behind the counter. She looked up at me over her spectacles and smiled, and I took to her on the instant. She had the kind of old wise face that God loves.”

“I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth.”

“Yes, because when I've forgotten everything else, I'll feel that ache... that tightness in my throat... that heaviness in my chest... and know that I loved a woman once and she loved me back. It's proof that I existed and so did she.”

“The girdle went from just under my breasts to the top of my knees. It cinched me in pretty tight. In fact, it was so tight that when I sat in it and farted, the farts would slide up my back, shoot out the top of the girdle, and make my hair fly off the back of my beck.”

“I think about her. I think about the first time I saw her.. I had a book in my hand and I was reading and for some reason I looked up...She didn't see me. She didn't see me, but I saw her.”