“I know there are people who don't read fiction at all, and I find it hard to understand how they can bear to be inside the same head all the time.”

“… he said, with sort of a little derisive smile, "How can you walk down the street with all this stuff going on inside you?" I said, "I don't know how you can walk down the street with nothing going on inside you.”

“I’m looking for a hard-headed woman,
One who will make me do my best,
And if I find my hard-headed woman,
I know the rest of my life will be blessed”

“It was getting hard to keep all the things I didn't know inside me.”

“All the times that I’ve cried, keeping all the things I knew inside,
It’s hard, but it’s harder to ignore it”

“I have to work hard to not look like a nerd all the time. My friends are the only people I know that don't care about my image. I need to have people who treat me just as Josh, not as Josh the singer.”

“What is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don't know and I'm afraid. I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want.”

“When I read a book, I want you to be reading it at the same time. I want to know what would Amelia think of it. I want you to be mine. I can promise you books and conversation and all my heart, Amy.”

“I think it was the ability of the theater to communicate ideas and extol virtues that drew me to it. And also I was, and remain, fascinated by the idea of an audience as a community of people who gather willingly to bear witness. A novelist writes a novel and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time. I find that thrilling.”

“I may not know how to fly but I know how to read, and that's almost the same thing.”