“You start Saul, and end up Paul,' my grandfather had often said. 'When you're a youngun, you Saul, but let life whup your head a bit and you starts to trying to be Paul – though you still Sauls around on the side.”

“In one of his puckish moods Saul talked the president of a university into letting him anonymously take an examination being administered to candidates for a doctorate in community organization. "Three of the questions were on the philosophy of and motivations of Saul Alinsky," writes Saul. "I answered two of them incorrectly.”

“Yves. You are goint to love him all over again when you meet him, believe me. You're married.' 'I'm what? But I can't be more than eighteen!' 'My son is very persuasive,' said Saul proudly.”

“If I imagine the genesis of a novelist in the form of an exemplary tale, a "myth," that genesis looks to me like a conversion story: Saul becoming Paul; the novelist being born from the ruins of his lyrical world.”

“Xavier, you have given me more grey hairs than all my sons put together.’ Saul frowned, then corrected himself. ‘To be fair, you and Zed. Just try not to add to them tonight.”

“I've given you everything a friend can give, Joe Saul-even contempt, and that's the hardest thing of all.”