“He wanted to limit me to his own investigation of who I was . . .”

“I read Borges, Jorge Luis Borges. He think he too good for me, but I love him . . . he was a blind man who see better than anyone”

“The books housed in one's first adult bookshelf are the geological bed of who we wish to become”

“Bruno was a musician with the temperament of an anarchist and the breath of a bartender's dishrag. He gave the lie to bookselling as a genteel occupation.”

“The Arcade, and now Peabody's, combined to tell me that there was life in objects, in books. It was all about having eyes to see the true meaning of things. As Pike proved daily, books held a kind of magic, an apparent as well as a hidden value.”

“I loved the city. We were anonymous, and even then I had the sense that cities were yielding; that they moved over and made room.”

“I drink to not giving a damn . . .”