After all, addiction is just the last stage of consumerism.

— Charles Baxter

As the poet says, all happy couples are alike, it's the unhappy ones who create the stories. I'm no longer a story. Happiness has made me fade into real life.

— Charles Baxter

At least with pets, and for all I know, people too, intelligence and quick-sightedness have nothing to do with a talent for being loved, or being kind, nothing at all, less than nothing.

— Charles Baxter

Ethics is a dream.

— Charles Baxter

Everybody should read something. Otherwise, we all fall down into the pit of ignorance. Many are down there. Some people fall in it forever. Their lives mean nothing. They should not exist. (From the short story, "Charity".)

— Charles Baxter

Forget art. Put your trust in ice cream.

— Charles Baxter

If you want to see the consequences of ideas, write a story. If you want to see the consequences of belief, write a story in which somebody is acting on the ideas or beliefs that she has.

— Charles Baxter

In truth, there are only two realities: the one for people who are in love or love each other, and the one for people who are standing outside all that.

— Charles Baxter

My God, the corruptions of literature. It put all these notions into our heads.

— Charles Baxter

Needing something is not the same thing as being interested in the thing itself.

— Charles Baxter