Nicholson Baker

“Books: a beautifully browsable invention that needs no electricity and exists in a readable form no matter what happens.”

“I no longer want to live in an apartment furnished with forklifts and backhoes.”

“Spoon the sauce over the ice cream. It will harden. This is what you have been working for.”

“From my music training, I knew that, some Spanish rhythms apart, 5/4 is a time signature used only in the modern era. Holst's Mars from the Planets is 5/4. But if you speak lines of poetry in that pattern you just end up hitting the off-beats. It's only when you add a rest - a sixth beat - that it s...”

“I really practiced hard and got to a certain level of technical proficiency. I overcame some of my limitations. I was a hard-working, dedicated bassoonist, but I have to say I'm not a natural musician.”

“For me, as a beginning novelist, all other living writers form a control group for whom the world is a placebo.”