Fiorito has all the right stuff. His splendid memoir about his relationship with his dying father belongs on that small shelf with Philip Roth's Patrimony and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes.

If you caricature friends in your first novel they will be upset, but if you don't they will feel betrayed.

A boy can be two, three, four potential people, but a man is only one. He murders the others.

There are three sides to every argument. Yours. The other guy's. And the right side.

Nothing is absolute any longer. There is a choice of beliefs and a choice of truths to go with them. If you choose not to choose then there is no truth at all. There are only points of view.

There are ten commandments, right? Well, it's like an exam. You get eight out of ten, you're just about top of the class.

I'm criticized by the feminists, by the Jewish establishment, by Canadian nationalists. And why not? I've had my pot shots at them. I'm fair game.

Beauty, like male ballet dancers, makes some men afraid.

Each man creates god in his own image.

Edmonton is not the end of the world but you can certainly see it from there.

Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing; it's about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustration that it creates.

Love's language is imprecise, fits more like mittens than gloves.

The conformist is not born. He is made. I believe the brainwashing process begins in the schools and colleges.

Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body

It is in virtue that happiness consists for virtue is the state of mind which tends to make the whole of life harmonious.

Mystery is something that appeals to most everybody.

I am sure that there are some single payer advocates who think the only thing worth fighting for is single payer.

He who cannot believe is cursed, for he reveals by his unbelief that God has not chosen to give him grace.

The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.

An accomplished man to his fingertips.

Nice to meet you, mate, and here's some advice: Don't even think about it. You try anything with her and I'll neuter you with my bare hands.