Memories were waiting at the edges of things, beckoning to me.

I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.

I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.

A story only matters, I suspect, to the extent that the people in the story change.

But there was a kitten on my pillow, and it was purring in my face and vibrating gently with every purr, and, very soon, I slept.

Books were safer than other people anyway.

Nobody looks like what they really are on the inside. You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of everybody.

I make art, sometimes I make true art, and sometimes it fills the empty places in my life. Some of them. Not all.

Words save our lives, sometimes.

You get on with your own life. Lettie gave it to you. You just have to grow up and try and be worth it.

They were not my friends, after all. They were just the people I went to school with.

Real? Real depends upon your perspective, Annabelle. People never see life exactly the same way. The world is what you think it is.

It's stupid. There are maps to show you how to get to the place where you want to be but no maps that show you how to get to the time when you want to be.

That opinion, which supposes personal sanctification to be unnecessary to final glorification, stands in direct opposition to every dictate of reason, to every declaration of scripture.

I used to lead off when I was a rookie. I've always been able to bunt.

If a person doesn't govern his temper, his temper will govern him.

It was necessary, temporarily, to limit certain requirements, accumulate necessary means, strain forces. We acted precisely in this way and built a socialist society.

I'm always most interested in writing about things that I don't understand.

....both had learned that everything could change in an instant, and that the heartfelt vows of people in love were fragile words that, once shattered, could cut so deeply you'd bleed forever.

Now I know how Joan of Arc felt, As the flames rose to her Roman nose And her Walkman started to melt...

I don't want to travel.