“In the dime stores and bus stations,
People talk of situations,
Read books repeat quotations,
Draw conclusions on the wall.”

“A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station….”

“I'm sitting in the bus station, minding my own business, reading ‘Ta-Da!’ magazine; a magazine by and for gay magicians, but that's a different story.”

“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.”

“Quotation, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.”

“Here and there people sat at desks, carefully turning the pages of manuscripts, or unrolling scrolls and making notes. It comforted her. This is a place built to store books, by people who wanted to preserve books, and used by people who want to read those books. I am not alone.”

“When people ask me what I think is my best work, it's the bus. There're lots of books, but there's only one bus.”

“This is a film about — and also for — not only obsessed clerks in record stores, but the video store clerks who have seen all the movies, and the bookstore employees who have read all the books. Also for bartenders, waitresses, greengrocers in health food stores, kitchen slaves at vegetarian restaurants, the people at GNC who know all the herbs, writers for alternative weeklies, disc jockeys on college stations, salespeople in retro clothing shops, tattoo artists and those they tattoo, poets, artists, musicians, novelists, and the hip, the pierced and the lonely. They may not see themselves but they will recognize people they know.”

“Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.”

“If I live to be a hundred--and I hope I do--I won't have time to read all the books I want to read, or talk to the people I want to know. Not party talk. That's a waste of time. Real talk.”