“Reading in bed can be heaven, assuming you can get just the right amount of light on the page and aren't prone to spilling your coffee or cognac on the sheets. ”

“I like to get ten pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words. That’s 180,000 words over a three-month span, a goodish length for a book — something in which the reader can get happily lost, if the tale is done well and stays fresh.”

“Clay said, "If they have flashlights like us, we can almost assume-""We can't assume anything," [Alice] said restlessly, querulously. "My father says assume makes an ass out of you and me. Get it, u and-""I get it," Clay said.”

“In here I'm the guy who can get things for you... outside all you need is the Yellow Pages. I don't think I could make it.”

“You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair--the sense that you can never completely put on the page what's in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.”

“you must not come lightly to the blank page.”

“Sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. It's what you say when you spill a cup of coffee or throw a gutter ball when you're bowling with the girls in the league. True sorrow is as rare as true love.”