“It may sound paradoxical, but verbal fluency is the product of many hours spent writing about nothing, just as musical fluency is the product of hours spent repeating scales.”

“When so many hours have been spent convincing myself I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?”

“Her fluency was marvelous. She would say things at random, intricate, flamelike, or slide off into a parenthetical limbo peppered with fireworks-- admirable linguistic feats which a practiced writer might struggle for hours to achieve.”

“Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories, the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination.”

“I thought about all the people I knew who spent many of their waking hours feeling sorry for themselves. How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self-pity. Just a few tearful minutes, then on with the day.”

“That’s it?” Jason asked. “You spent an hour talking about how lucky you were to be dying?”
No, not dying, Son. Living.”

“I once spent an hour and a half trying to explain a situation to "Sepp" Dietrich with the aid of a map. It was quite useless. He understood nothing at all.”

“Each night I lie and dream about the one
Who kissed me and awakened my desire
I spent a single hour with him alone
And since that hour, my days are layed with fire.”

“You count the hours you could have spent with your mother, it's a lifetime in itself.”

“… like us? Counting up the minutes -- have we spent half an hour together?”