Nicholson Baker

“Who cares about my cock? It'll fend for itself.”

— Nicholson Baker

Wikipedia flourished partly because it was a shrine to altruism.

— Nicholson Baker

The job of the novel is to be true to the confusion, but not so confusing that you turn the reader off.

— Nicholson Baker

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

— Nicholson Baker

In my case, adulthood itself was not an advance, although it was a useful waymark.

— Nicholson Baker

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

— Nicholson Baker

“There is a feeble urgency behind all forced mannerisms of finery- haste and pomp cannot coincide. ”

— Nicholson Baker

I was very shy and somewhat awkward. I studied too hard. And to have this exciting dorm life was a whole new…

— Nicholson Baker

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

— Nicholson Baker

Sometimes I think with the telephone that if I concentrate enough I could pour myself into it and I'd be turned into…

— Nicholson Baker

I prefer reading e-books on a high resolution LCD screen - like the iPod Touch's - although the pixel density could and…

— Nicholson Baker

First, if you love the Kindle and it works for you, it isn't problematic, and you should ignore all my criticisms and…

— Nicholson Baker

Wikipedia is just an incredible thing. It is fact-encirclingly huge, and it is idiosyncratic, careful, messy, funny, shocking and full of simmering…

— Nicholson Baker

E.B. White's essays are the best things I've read about Maine - especially the one in which he's not sure if he…

— Nicholson Baker

The music wasn't going to happen, and I realized I had read so little. I didn't know my way around any century.…

— Nicholson Baker

The nice thing about a protest song is that it takes the complaint, the fussing, the finger-pointing, and gives it an added…

— Nicholson Baker

You almost believe that you will never come to the end of a roll of tape; and when you do, there is…

— Nicholson Baker

When the excessively shy force themselves to be forward, they are frequently surprisingly unsubtle and overdirect and even rude: they have entered…

— Nicholson Baker

I would like to visit the factory that makes train horns, and ask them how they are able to arrive at that…

— Nicholson Baker

From my music training, I knew that, some Spanish rhythms apart, 5/4 is a time signature used only in the modern era.…

— Nicholson Baker

I certainly felt I had an idea of World War II, and it's probably the idea that many people share: there was…

— Nicholson Baker

There was a lot of maneuvering on the part of the Roosevelt administration to get the stars aligned so that that attack…

— Nicholson Baker

“Will you dance for me? Let your breasts roam for a moment -- I need to see how they dance.' 'Okay.' She…

— Nicholson Baker

The equivocations, the confusions, the contradictions. There's no way we can live through or comprehend something so big that happened so long…

— Nicholson Baker

Gandhi was important for another reason as well: his country was suffering under the British Empire, and yet he was leading a…

— Nicholson Baker

So what rhyming poems do is they take all these nearby sound curves and remind you that they first existed that way…

— Nicholson Baker

“I don’t think that loneliness is necessarily a bad or unconstructive condition. My own skill at jamming time may actually be dependent…

— Nicholson Baker

“One day the English language is going to perish. The easy spokenness of it will perish and go black and crumbly —…

— Nicholson Baker

“Carpe diem' doesn't mean seize the day--it means something gentler and more sensible. 'Carpe diem' means pluck the day. Carpe, pluck. Seize…

— Nicholson Baker

“It's time for bed. And here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get in bed, and I don't have anyone…

— Nicholson Baker

“The Pop-Tarts page is often aflutter. Pop-Tarts, it says as of today (February 8, 2008), were discontinued in Australia in 2005. Maybe…

— Nicholson Baker

“At some point you have to set aside snobbery and what you think is culture and recognize that any random episode of…

— Nicholson Baker

“Though simple, the trick was something that struck me as useful right now . Thus, the 'when I was little' nostalgia was…

— Nicholson Baker

When I first wanted to be a writer, I learned to write prose by reading poetry.

— Nicholson Baker

When I really want to be soothed and reminded of why people bother to fiddle with sentences, I often read poetry.

— Nicholson Baker

I keep thinking I'll enjoy suspense novels, and sometimes I do. I've read about 20 Dick Francis novels.

— Nicholson Baker

Updike was the first to take the penile sensorium under the wing of elaborate metaphorical prose.

— Nicholson Baker

Many good poets are really essayists who write very short essays.

— Nicholson Baker

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

— Nicholson Baker

But spending your life concentrating on death is like watching a whole movie and thinking only about the credits that are going…

— Nicholson Baker