In the end we had the pieces of the puzzle, but no matter how we put them together, gaps remained, oddly shaped emptinesses mapped by what surrounded them, like countries we couldn't name.

We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.

Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.

When I wrote The Virgin Suicides, I gave myself very strict rules about the narrative voice: the boys would only be able to report what they had seen or found or what had been told to them.

Basically what we have here is a dreamer. Somebody out of touch with reality. When she jumped, she probably thought she'd fly

It was one of those humid days when the atmosphere gets confused. Sitting on the porch, you could feel it: the air wishing it was water.

In the end, the tortures tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple reasoned refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them, so full of flaws.

Depression is like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch it where it hurts. It's always there, though.

You never get over it, but you get to where it doesn't bother you so much.

It was like autumn, looking at her. it was like driving up north to see the colors.

She held herself very straight, like Audrey Hepburn, whom all women idolize and men never think about.

The good thing about winning the race against time is that even though your time is diminishing you always have a product to show for it.

If you can miss getting up in the morning and running into a wall, I miss playing football. I'll never be a frustrated athlete.

Notwithstanding all the wrongs that slavery heaped upon me, I can bless it for one thing-youth's important lesson of self-reliance.

Nature is mythical and mystical always, and works with the license and extravagance of genius. She has her luxurious and florid style as well as art.

Sport can bring communities together and can release a lot of pent-up emotions

Dad: someone who hopes his son will turn out just like him, and who is afraid his daughters will meet someone who did.

Affection can no more spoil a child than the sun could be put out by a bucket of gasoline.

The executive branch has grown too strong, the judicial branch too arrogant and the legislative branch too stupid.

I'm never, never sure which way to go. I'm full of unsureness. That's been a habit for years. I never really want to commit.

Invisible things are the only realities; invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.