David Bergen is a master of taut, spare prose that's both erotic and hypnotic. . . .

Is it wrong to trust in a beautiful lie if it helps you get through life?

I learned another thing, which is that just because someone is eating the ashes of your protagonist doesn't mean you stop telling the story.

There are no windows within the dark house of depression through which to see others, only mirrors.

Conversing with children is a fine art.... An art form that demands large amounts of both honesty and misdirection. Or maybe discretion is a better word.

It was the first time that we had sort of articulated our major problem. She wanted to die and I wanted her to live and we were enemies who loved each other.

Her faith in a loving and forgiving God is strong, but she worships laughter.

It’s hard to grieve in a town where everything that happens is God’s will. It’s hard to know what to do with your emptiness when you’re not supposed to have emptiness.

It's raining questions around here. A person could drown in them.

But love, like a mushroom high compared with the buzz from cheap weed, outlasts grief.

I love road trips. You get into this Zen rhythm; throw sense of time out the window.

A sword can only pierce the body, but love can pierce the soul.

A smile remains the most inexpensive gift I can bestow on anyone and yet its powers can vanquish kingdoms.

A lasting order cannot be established by bayonets.

...the great lesson is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one's daily life, in one's neighbors, friends, and family, in one's backyard.

I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after all.

Fortunately, as we all know, it's impossible for anybody but Jimmy Smith to really sound like Jimmy Smith.

When strict with oneself, one rarely fails.

And on that day when my strength is failing; the end draws near and my time has come. Still my soul will sing Your praise unending ten thousand years and then forevermore

I am proud to be a normal size girl and I want to encourage everyone to be confident at any size.

To me it meant, just looking at it from a Maya point of view, it meant that Paul Miles is always moving laterally in his life. And she just wants him to take a couple of steps forward, you know?