“I thought research would be more glamorous, somehow. I'd give the librarian a secret code word and he'd give me the one book I needed and whisper the necessary page numbers. Like a speakeasy. With books.”

“Books are like friends to me. Words come alive on the page.”

“Chico: "Here's the book, it's a dollar"
Groucho: "Here's a ten, and shoot the change."
Chico: "I don't have change I'd have to give you nine more books.”

“To this day, if you ask me how I became a writer, I cannot give you an answer. To this day, if you ask me how a book is written, I cannot answer. For long periods, if I didn't know that somehow in the past I had written a book, I would have given up.”

“As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school. I actually believed all those books belonged to her.”

“I just wanted to be the first one to fly for America, not because I'd end up in the pages of history books.”

“Here is all I ask of a book- give me everything. Everything, and don't leave out a single word.”

“Go on. Treat me like the page of a book. Your book.”

“Since quoting the Quran may get this book banned, I will merely give the verse numbers…”

“If I could only give three words of advice, they would be, "tell the truth." If I got three more words, I'd add: "All the time."”