“ Anyway, she sings like a mad tropical bird, and it's just a fondue of molten wanting and grieving and the sadness of the large naked swinging breasts and soft olive skin and everything that you wish y… Nicholson Baker
“ Books: a beautifully browsable invention that needs no electricity and exists in a readable form no matter what happens. Nicholson Baker
“ In repairing the object you really ended up loving it more, because you now knew its eagerness to be reassembled, and in running a fingertip over its surface you alone could feel its many cracks - a b… Nicholson Baker
“ There is no good word for ; just as there is no good word for . is to as is to , and as is to , and as is to . Nicholson Baker
“ Will the time ever come when I am not so completely dependent on thoughts I first had in childhood to furnish the feedstock for my comparisons and analogies and sense of the parallel rhythms of microh… Nicholson Baker
“ The whole point of straws, I had thought, was that you did not have to set down the slice of pizza to suck a dose of Coke while reading a paperback. Nicholson Baker
“ Used with care, substances that harm neural tissue, such as alcohol, can aid intelligence: you corrode the chromium, giggly, crossword puzzle-solving parts of your mind with pain and poison, forcing t… Nicholson Baker
“ Gerard Manley Hopkins somewhere describes how he mesmerized a duck by drawing a line of chalk out in front of it. Think of me as the duck; the chalk, softly wearing itself away against the tiny pebble… Nicholson Baker
“ Will you dance for me? Let your breasts roam for a moment -- I need to see how they dance.''Okay.' She danced, and as she danced, she tried to think of the most delicious salads she could imagine -- w… Nicholson Baker
“ You float like a feather, sings Radiohead, In a beautiful world. I've listened several times to the Radiohead songs, because it was nice of Raymond to say he heard a bit of them in what I sang. I'm no… Nicholson Baker
“ One day the English language is going to perish. The easy spokenness of it will perish and go black and crumbly — maybe — and it will become a language like Latin that learned people learn. And schola… Nicholson Baker
“ …you almost believe that you will never come to the end of a roll of tape; and when you do, there is a feeling, nearly, though very briefly, of shock and grief. Nicholson Baker
“ Literary friendship is impossible, it seems; at least, it is impossible for me. Indeed, all male friendships outside of work sometimes seem to be impossible: you look at each other at the restaurant a… Nicholson Baker
“ Perforation! Shout it out! The deliberate punctuated weakening of paperand cardboard so that it will tear along an intended path, leaving a row of fine-haired white pills or tuftlets on… Nicholson Baker
“ At that age I once stabbed my best friend, Fred, with a pair of pinking shears in the base of the neck, enraged because he had been given the comprehensive sixty-four-crayon Crayola box—including the… Nicholson Baker
“ Perforation! Shout it out! The deliberate punctuated weakening of paper and cardboard so that it will tear along an intended path, leaving a row of fine-haired pills or tuftlets on each new edge! It i… Nicholson Baker
“ Abelardo, my manager, emerged from a stall. What do you think, Howie? he said; it was his standard greeting —one I was fond of.Abe, I don't know what to think, I said; my standard response. Nicholson Baker
