“Getting help from a guy like you is like hiring a pyromaniac to fix the oil-burner.”

“Nobody likes to see a stupid guy wise up.”

“A banty-rooster sort of guy, the kind that likes to pick fights, especially when the odds are all their way.”

“once you get into cosmological shit like this, you got to throw away the instruction manual”

“Why didn't you kill me like you did that guy back there? Billy? Or does it even make any sense to ask? Are you beyond why?'Oh shit, we're all beyond why, you know that.”

“Guys like Henry and his buddies were an accident waiting to happen; the little kids' version of floods or tornadoes or gallstones.”

“There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust all over your typewriter or computer. He lives in the ground. He’s a basement kind of guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you. Do you think it’s fair? I think it’s fair. He may not be much to look at, that muse-guy, and he may not be much of a conversationalist, but he’s got inspiration. It’s right that you should do all the work and burn all the mid-night oil, because the guy with the cigar and the little wings has got a bag of magic. There’s stuff in there that can change your life. Believe me, I know.”