“the whole point of the wish business was to see to it that what the client got was exactly what he asked for and exactly what he didn't really want.”

“There was no point in looking again. He [Cork] knew that. No point except to feed the coldness inside him. In a strange way, that was exactly what he wanted now. He wanted to feed himself to the cold until the cold had consumed him and he didn't care anymore.”

“I asked him what, if anything, got him down about teaching. He said he didn't think that anything about it got him exactly down, but there was one thing, he thought, that frightened him: reading the pencilled notations in the margins of books in the college library.”

“The way for a person to develop a style is (a) to know exactly what he wants to say, and (b) to be sure he is saying exactly that.”

“What I've learned, Mia, and what my grandmother always said, is that the whole point is wishing and remembering - not if what you want happens, not if remembering hurts. Because when you wish for something, you're asking. And when you ask, you're trying. And all everyone can really do is try, right?”

“What do schools do that for?” he grumbles. “What’s the point of summer if they give you homework?” “Exactly!”