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

Haven't you felt a peculiar sort of worry about the chair in your living room that no one sits in?
Nicholson Baker

I no longer want to live in an apartment furnished with forklifts and backhoes.
Nicholson Baker

Rarely do pens go dry in restaurants.
Nicholson Baker

Shoes are the first adult machines we are given to master.
Nicholson Baker

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

That was the problem with reading: you always had to pick up again at the very thing that had made you stop reading the day before.
Nicholson Baker

Until a friend or relative has applied a particular proverb to your own life, or until you've watched him apply the proverb to his own life, it has no power to sway you.
Nicholson Baker