“Tis all a Checkerboard of Nights and Days Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays: Hither and thither moves, and mates, and stays, And one by one back in the Closet lays.”

“Taste is the feminine of genius.”

“I am not saying that Hitler was a choir boy. But I am saying, let him who was innocent in the Second World War cast the first stone.”

“Who I am as a guitarist is defined by my failure to become Jimi Hendrix.”

“Pride is ugly. It says, 'If you succeed, I am a failure.'”

“We are a unique ape. We have language. Other animals have systems of communication that fall far short of that. They don't have the same ability to communicate complicated conditionals and what-ifs...”

“The Internet has given us 10 or 15 new styles of communication: long messages like blogging, and then short messages like texting and tweeting. I see it all as part of an expanding array of linguis...”

“In parenting, as in judging, the days are long, but the years are short.”

“I wish that I had been born a man, then I wouldn't be the boy that I am.”

“The man was staring directly at him now, a curious expression on his face, half smiling, half quizzical. Instantly Eager had a sense of certainty far deeper than anything he had experienced so far....”

“I'm just so tired of life being something that happens to me. That's not how it's supposed to work. I'm supposed to make my own life.”