I've reached the age where bruises are formed from failures within rather than accidents without.

She struggled with her sadness, but tried to conceal it, to divide it into smaller and smaller parts and scatter these in places she thought no one would find them.

...after all, who isn't a survivor from the wreck of childhood?

When at last I came upon the right book, the feeling was violent: it blew open a hole in me that made life more dangerous because I couldn't control what came through it.

The price we paid for the volumes of ourselves that we suffocated in the dark.

In life we sit at the table and refuse to eat, and in death we are eternally hungry.

There were many things they simply didn't talk about: between them, silence was not so much a form of evasion as a way for solitary people to exist in a family.

I read differently now, more painstakingly, knowing I am probably revisiting the books I love for the last time. (245)

Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

And Seaman, just like a falling oak, manages to change direction.

You can't find the right roads when the streets are paved.

There are always opportunities through which businessmen can profit handsomely if they will only recognize and seize them.

Who burns me and shocks me and shatters me with a single touch.

Writing, for me, means humility. It’s a process that involves fear and doubt, especially if you’re writing honestly.

There was something about being in front of audiences when I was in elementary school plays that gave me a thrill. It was like the rush you get from a roller coaster drop.

I had an older brother who passed away recently, an older sister and a younger brother.