Few people, very few, have a treasure, and if you do you must hang onto it. You must not let yourself be waylaid, and have it taken from you.

You cannot let your parents anywhere near your real humiliations.

The complexity of things - the things within things - just seems to be endless. I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple.

Always remember that when a man goes out of the room, he leaves everything in it behind. When a woman goes out she carries everything that happened in the room along with her.

I would really hope this would make people see the short story as an important art, not just something you played around with until you got a novel.

The conversation of kisses. Subtle, engrossing, fearless, transforming.

In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places.

We say of some things that they can't be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do-we do it all the time.

My head was a magpie's nest lined with such bright scraps of information.

Love removes the world for you, and just as surely when it's going well as when it's going badly.

Life would be grand if it weren't for the people.

Don’t be afraid of those failures that do not lead to a loss of life or that do not incapacitate people.

I was a college football fanatic, and I wanted to play, not sit on the sidelines. It's tough when you know you're just a project.

The most popular argument in all these papers was the assertion ... that Christianity had grown and prospered in spite of the opposition of the State.

If you get too attached to how you want it to come out the other side, you freeze. I try to trust that it will work out in the end.

Summer grasses — all that remains of great soldiers' imperial dreams.

Two wives? That exceeds the custom.

I started in college as a business major and finally transferred to home economics and studied making clothes.

It was another day to go to work, and try to play and play well.

In doubt, fear is the worst of prophets.