“In my opening seconds, I would say, "It's great to be here," then move to several other spots on the stage and say, "No, it's great to be here!" I would move again: "No, it's great to be here!”

“Let's suppose that you want to say, "I am a jerk." IN the 18th century, you would have to go around person to person and utter the phrase individually to each one of them. However, here in the third millennium, with our advances in telephone communication, it is possible to say "I am a jerk" to a thousand people at a time by forgetting to turn off your cell phone and having it ring during a performance of Death of a Salesman.”

“Other names came, but the square overflowed and the confusion pleased me. I shifted away from the window, turning my back on the apartment across the street. I moved to the living room and sat, silently thanking those who had brought me here and those had affected me, both above and below consciousness. I thought of the names in and around the magic square. I thought of their astounding number, both in the present and in the past, of Zandy and Angela, of Brian, of Granny, even of my father, whose disavowal of me led to this place, and I understood that as much as I had resisted the outside, as much as I had constricted my life, as much as I closed and narrowed the channels into me, there were still many takers for the quiet heart.”

“It's so hard to believe in anything anymore. I mean, it's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, because it seems so mythological, it seems so arbitrary...but, on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. I guess I wouldn't believe in anything anymore if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.”

“LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA: WHY IT'S A BAD TITLEI admit that "Love in the time of . . ." is a great title, up to a point. You're reading along, you're happy, it's about love. I like the way the word time comes in - a nice, nice feeling. Then the morbid Cholera appears. I was happy till then. Why not "Love in the Time of the Blue, Blue, Bluebirds"? "Love in the Time of Oozing Sores and Pustules" is probably an earlier title the author used as he was writing in a rat-infested tree house on an old Smith Corona. This writer, whoever he is, could have used a couple of weeks in Pacific Daylight Time.”

“Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.”

“Mirabelle is attractive; it's just that she is never the first or second girl chosen.”