“He walked out into the cold morning asking himself this heretical question: Can you start measuring a minute at any instant you wish?”

“Two questions form the foundation of all novels: "What if?" and "What next?" (A third question, "What now?", is one the author asks himself every 10 minutes or so; but it's more a cry than a question.) Every novel begins with the speculative question, What if "X" happened? That's how you start.”

“Forever [is] so many different things. It is always changing... it is twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just this instant, or any instant I wish would last and last”

“Go anywhere you wish, talk to everyone. Ask any questions; you will be given answers. When you want to learn, you will be taught. Use the library. Open any book.”

“If you start looking up, they start asking questions.”

“If he had to wish, what would he wish for, he asked himself. What was there to wish for... a wish asked for the unattainable. The impossible.”