“it's a rare day when she speaks in anything but platitudes--all those exhausted phrases and hand-me-down ideas that cram the dump sites of contemporary wisdom”

“Most of her contemporaries simply don't understand why she has all these paper books, or indeed all this paper.It's a hands-on craving. I can't remember anything unless I write it down or draw it. Many of our words for cognition are tactile words. We speak of "handling" a problem, "turning it over" in our minds, "grasping" an idea. A keyboard just doesn't do it for all of us.”

“When you smile, serious ideas get exhausted. At night the mountains keep quiet beside you, in the morning the sand goes with you down to the beach. When you do nice things to me all the heavy industries shut down.”

“The night before, Paramedic (in Training) Lindsey Lee Wells had diagnosed him with moderate contusions and "sprained balls" after an exhaustive search of medical Web sites. She diagnosed TOC as suffering from 'I'm-an-asshole-and-Lindsey's-never-going-to-speak-to-me-again-itis'.”

“She wasn't speaking to me - in the juvenile, petty sense of the phrase.”

“People who teach you cram old ideas, old views, old ways, into you. Like covering plants with layer after layer of old earth; it's no wonder the poor things so rarely come up fresh and green.”