“He hated to think of his own life stretching ahead of him that way, a long succession of days and nights that were fine - not good, not bad, not great, not lousy, not exciting, not anything.”

“They don't actually want you to do your own thing, not unless it's their thing too.”

“The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.”

“He was intrigued by the power of words, not the literary words that filled the books in the library but the sharp, staccato words that went into the writing of news stories. Words that went for the...”

“The possibility that hope comes out of hopelessness and that the opposite of things carry the seeds of birth - love out of hate, good out of evil. Didn't flowers grow out of dirt?”

“The cheese stands aloneThe cheese stands aloneHeigh-ho the merry-oThe cheese stands alone”