Could she smell my breath? Could she hear my cursed circular heart beat revolving like the crime it is in my deathly chest?

A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.

Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.

If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.

Often I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do something like walk down the basement steps with a snowman in your hands.

I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.

I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skills is their capacity to escalate.

No matter how many times she was told that she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment.

It was the beginning of the greatest Christmas ever. Little food. No presents. But there was a snowman in their basement.

As always, one of her books was next to her.

If you can't imagine it, think clumsy silence. Think bits and pieces of floating despair. And drowning in a train.

One of the greatest lessons we can learn in life is how to keep mute when the boiling ring of anger is dropped within us

Moral stories are always imaginary, but these stories induce real moral values in a human society .

In a storm, I think, 'What if the gospel be not true? Then thou art, of all men, most foolish. For what has thou given up thy goods, thy ease, thy friends, thy reputation, thy country, thy life?'

We finally got Nebraska where we want them...off the schedule.

Prevent the things you have been doing and you are half-way home.

Do not be afraid of cooking as your ingredients will know, and misbehave. Enjoy your cooking and the food will behave; moreover it will pass your pleasure on to those who eat it.

I don't know if I don't believe in monogamy. I think I do believe in it depending on the person or situation or something.

The buildings ... had suffered the inevitable shrinkage of places revisited.

Decades later I would look into my father's eyes and try to reach past the murkiness of Alzheimer's with my words, my apology, hoping that in his heart he heard me and understood.

To emphasize style is to slight content, or to introduce an attitude which is neutral with respect to content.