“I met Kafka and he jumped over a building to get away from me.”

“The American appetite for loneliness impressed me, and there was something about this solitude that freed conversation. One night at a bar, I met a man, and within five minutes he explained that he had just been released from prison. Another drinker told me that his wife had passed away, and he had recently suffered a heart attack, and now he hoped that he would die within the year. I learned that there's no reliable small talk in America; at any moment a conversation can become personal.”

“I found him perhaps the least terrifying man I've ever met in the theater—because at first glance I could see through him and he could see through me, and he knew that I knew that he knew. Look, love, I've been bullied all my life by bigger experts than Larry Olivier, I can assure you, and he's just got to get in line.”

“I met a man at a party. He said "I'm writing a novel" I said "Oh really? Neither am I.”

“We have had a spot of bother. I am afraid that I shot the Bard in the bottom. Good thing that I was over fifty paces away.”

“Let's scope the place out," he suggested, heading around the side of the building, "and be careful in the bushes.""Why?" Amy asked."This is South Africa, dude," Dan replied. "Where cobras come from. And not the hot ones, like Ian.”

“Back then I could not understand one word of what I read.Reading did, however, give me heart. Even if you cannot understand what you are reading you can get something from books.”