“I have been with the Court all my life, travelling with the King's Progress.
I didn't know how to go on. I sat and stared at this sentence, until Grundo said, "If you can't do it, I will."
If you didn't know Grundo, you'd think this was a generous offer, but it was a threat really. Grundo is dyslexic. Unless he thinks hard, he writes inside out and backwards. He was threatening me with half a page of crooked writing with words like "inside" turning up as "sindie" and "story" as "otsyr".”

“It takes me six months to do a story. I think it out and then write it sentence by sentence—no first draft. I can’t write five words but that I change seven.”

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

“You know, it's hard work to write a book. I can't tell you how many times I really get going on an idea, then my quill breaks. Or I spill ink all over my writing tunic.”

“I used to hang out with Bryan down at The Rec. They were going to a comic book show, Kevin, Bryan and Walter. Bryan invited me and told Kevin that Jason Mewes kid's gonna come. And Kevin was like, "Oh, man, I don't want that dude going." He's like, "I ain't driving him." And Bryan was like, "All right. I'll drive." Kevin tells the story better, but when we were driving up — I don't remember, really, but he said I was saying all this stuff and Bryan and Walter were laughing and the whole time he was like, "This guy ain't funny. He ain't funny." He seemed like he really didn't like me. I think that was the first time I met him — he didn't want me coming with them to the comic book show. He didn't even know me, really, but he just didn't want me going. And then one day at The Rec I wound up doing something funny and that's when he started to like me.”

“"The first time you saw me, I bet you didn't think, He's going to get me killed."
"The first time I saw you, I wished you'd go back to Idris. You know I don't like change."
"I grew on you, though."
"Eventually. Like a moss, or a skin disease."”

“The older I get, the more confused I get. I used to think that age would bring wisdom. It doesn't, it just brings confusion. But I find that this confusion is artistically useful. It's a kind of progression, a negative progression. It's moving into areas that you didn't know were there. It becomes more dreamlike all the time. When I was starting out as a novelist, I would have been furious if anyone said to me that novels are dream-like or that they're doing things the novelist didn't know he was doing. Now, I find that it's absolutely true.”

“I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know."”

“… 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.”

“"He's like a drug for you, Bella." His voice was still gentle, not at all critical. "I see that you can't live without him now. It's too late. But I would have been healthier for you. Not a drug; I would have been the air, the sun."
The corner of my mouth turned up in a wistful half-smile. "I used to think of you that way, you know. Like the sun. My personal sun. You balanced out the clouds nicely for me."
He sighed. "The clouds I can handle. But I can't fight with an eclipse."”