Out of grad school, I worked as a tech writer for a while before going into computer coding for a living.

What I really like to learn how to do is to build sentences that are equal to mental states.

When you're sure of what you're looking at, look harder.

Librarian is a service occupation. Gas station attendant of the mind.

Reading is the last act of secular prayer.

All we can ever do is lay a word in the hands of those who have put one in ours.

The job of taste was to thin the insane torrent of human creativity down to manageable levels. But the job of appetite was never to be happy with taste.

I write the way you might arrange flowers. Not every try works, but each one launches another. Every constraint, even dullness, frees up a new design.

I'd like, each time out as a writer, to reinvent who I am and what I'm doing. That's one of the great pleasures and rewards of the occupation.

I would say the flip side to my fascination with systems is a fascination with components. So many of my books are dialogues between little and big.

The use of music is to remind us how short a time we have a body.

Compliments land assoft and gentle on my earsas a butterfly.

Never give up. Go and nurture. Go and nurture audacious goals. Let your greatness blossom.

It seems shelving is an art, like everything else. I decide to do it exceptionally well.

You know, nobody eats in England. three or four pints of english beer a night fills you. i can’t say i’m very impressed with the food in America. it’s all sort of bland. like turkey sandwiches.

America... where law and custom alike are based upon the dreams of spinsters...

I've been a public person for most of my life. It has advantages and disadvantages. I can't take my kids to Disneyland. On the other hand, I can get a table at a restaurant or tickets to a play.

Spiders' webs only have to be large enough to catch flies.

The entire socioeconomic system is based on production for profit and a growth imperative that cannot be sustained.

And joy is everywhere; it is in the earth's green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky.

Cats know, comin' out of four, they better be standin' on it, else they'll be standin' in it.