“Sometimes you know you've got a chance with a girl because she wants to fight with you. If the world wasn't so messed up, it wouldn't be like that. If the world was normal, a girl being nice to you...”

“We spent all those years talking about stuff we had in common, and the last few months noticing all the ways we were different and it broke both of our hearts.”

“To me, making a tape is like writing a letter there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again, and I wanted it to be a good one.”

“It's music rage, which is like road rage, only more righteous. When you get road rage, a tiny part of you knows you're being a jerk, but when you get music rage, you're carrying out the will of God...”

“And mostly all I have to say about these songs is that I love them, and want to sing along to them, and force other people to listen to them, and get cross when these other people don't like them a...”

“Years and years ago, I read a great interview with Jam and Lewis, the R&B producers, in which they described what it was like to be members of Prince's band. They'd sit down, and Prince would tell ...”

“The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a raw cold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house was most depressing. The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak turn...”

“Where would David Copperfield be if Dickens had gone to writing classes? Probably about seventy minor characters short, is where. (Did you know that Dickens is estimated to have invented thirteen t...”

“...the cab of the truck heated up nicely, its windows fogging. I felt like a Dickens character. I thought about explaining that to Mouse, just to occupy my thoughts, but he was suffering enough wit...”

“Sometimes two people have to fall apart, to realize how much they need to fall back together.”

“Good literature is one key to peace. When we stop reading each other, when we stop paying attention to each other's words and stories, we too easily oppose one another.”

“There is only one motive for writing a novel: to be published and read. To me there is no distinction between the mystery novel and the novel, only between good books and bad books. A good book tak...”