“My life - my real life - started when a man walked into it, a handsome stranger in a perfectly cut suit, and, yes I know how that sounds.”

“At any rate, that’s how I started running. Thirty three—that’s how old I was then. Still young enough, though no longer a young man. The age that Jesus Christ died. The age that Scott Fitzgerald started to go downhill. That age may be a kind of crossroads in life. That was the age when I began my life as a runner, and it was my belated, but real, starting point as a novelist.”

“You're the love of my life. I don't care how corny that sounds. You're the start of it, and the end of it. And you're the best of it.”

“I'm biding my time until my real life kicks in.""How will you know when that happens?""It will be when I no longer have a list of things I've never done.”

“In the future, it’ll be my child, but it will be my child’s life, so I must name it not for me, but for it. I like how that sounds. I think I’ll call it “It.” Boy or girl, It is perfect.
”

“Waiting for my real life to start is no excuse to waste the life I have right now.”