“When you've had a little success, magazines are a lot less apt to use that phrase, 'Not for us.”

“The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor.”

“The expression Jake saw on all the faces, oldest to youngest, was the same: pure joy. Not just that, he thought, and remembered a phrase his English teacher had used about how some books make us feel: the ecstasy of perfect recognition.”

“She was a grown up now, and she discovered that being a grown up was not quite what she had suspected it would be when she was a child. She had thought then that she would make a conscious decision one day to simply put her toys and games and little make-believes away. Now she discovered that was not what happened at all. Instead, she discovered, interest simply faded. It became less and less and less, until a dust of years drew over the bright pleasures of childhood, and they were forgotten”

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

“Pride was the belt you used to hold your pants up when you had no pants.”

“norris didn't cry, but he was apt to puke on them, the way he had puked on homer gamache that time he had found homer sprawled in a ditch out by homeland cemetary, beaten to death with his own artificial arm.”