“I saw something even more beautiful than a sense of humor: an appreciation for life’s essential absurdity.”

“Kennedy entered, waving to the standing audience, an elderly gentleman in an Alpine hat and lederhosen struck up “Hail to the Chief ” on an accordion bigger than he was. The president did a double take, then lifted both hands in an amiable holy shit gesture. For the first time I saw him as I had come to see Oswald—as an actual man. In the double take and the gesture that followed it, I saw something even more beautiful than a sense of humor: an appreciation for life’s essential absurdity.”

“He looked back at them, and Eddie saw something he had never expected to see in his life—not even if that life stretched over a thousand years. Roland of Gilead was weeping.”

“Of course they had more chains on him than Scrooge saw on Marley's ghost, but he could have kicked up dickens if he'd wanted. That's a pun, son.”

“I believe the first draft of a book — even a long one — should take no more than three months…Any longer and — for me, at least — the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel, like a dispatch from the Romanian Department of Public Affairs, or something broadcast on high-band shortwave duiring a period of severe sunspot activity.”

“He supposed that even in Hell, people got an occasional sip of water, if only so they could appreciate the full horror of unrequited thirst when it set in again.”

“I believe most people are essentially good. I know that I am. It's you I'm not entirely sure of.”