Literature is always something - it is either story or poetry, ideally both. That is, you always know what it is and even if the interpretation is not available, the experience of language is.

When I look at my old pictures, all I can see is what I used to be but am no longer. I think: What I can see is what I am not.

Home is where somebody notices when you are no longer there.

The perfect borscht is what life should be but never is.

Belief and delusion are incestuous siblings.

I am itching to criticize some well-regarded writers' works, but I am not doing it because I am perfectly aware that my critique could easily be reduced to envy or just plain meanness.

I gradually became aware that my interiority was inseparable from my exteriority, that the geography of my city was the geography of my soul.

I much preferred winning to thinking and I didn't like losing at all.

You don't want your neurosurgeon to have doubts about the meaning of it all while he or she is operating on your brain.

If you can't go home, there is nowhere to go, and nowhere is the biggest place in the world-indeed, nowhere is the world.

We knew - but didn't want to know - what was going to happen, the sky descending upon our heads like the shadow of a falling piano in a cartoon.

Your life may not be 'picture perfect' but you have it in you to make it 'your best.' There's only one chance at life and you owe it to yourself to give it all you can.

I wasn't into sports when I was younger. I was one of those kids who always tried to get a note from the doctor to say I had a cold so I didn't have to go play hockey in bad weather and be miserable.

What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.

Only a relationship with Christ can satisfy our hearts. Without Him we have nothing. With Him we have all things to enjoy.

Sometimes I think I might insult people by being openly flirtatious, then snatching it back.

The most humble research scientist in the Department of Agriculture is at this time contributing more to this country than the most useful member of Congress.

Artillery conquers and infantry occupies.

Now, there are two ways to approach a subject that frightens you and makes you feel stupid: you can embrace it with humility and an open mind, or you can ridicule it mercilessly.

What is it you want? That's a question that we all get posed sometimes internally and sometimes externally.

A system tends to grow in complexity instead of simplicity, until the resulting unreliability becomes intolerable.