“A book is like a pump. It gives nothing unless first you give to it. You prime a pump with your own water, you work the handle with your own strength. You do this because you expect to get back more than you give.”

“Come to a book as you would come to an unexplored land. Come without a map. Explore it, and draw your own map.... A book is like a pump. It gives nothing unless first you give to it. ”

“Get on before I blow you lose of your shoes and give your fathers cause to celebrate!”

“You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for... and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you.”

“There are always worse things waiting. You think you have seen the most terrible thing, the one that coalesces all your nightmares into a freakish horror that actually exists, and the only consolation is that there can be nothing worse. Even if there is, your mind will snap at the sight of it, and you will know no more. But there is worse, your mind does not snap, and somehow you carry on. You might understand that all the joy has gone out of the world for you, you might wish you were the one who was dead - but you go on. You might realize that you are in a hell of your own making, but you go on nevertheless. Because there is nothing else to do.”

“Yeah, but what if you went back and killed your own grandfather?"He stared at me, baffled. "Why the fuck would you do that?”

“If God gives you something you can do, why in God's name wouldn't you do it?”