My fury was lofty, pure, cool. It was an emotion that none of these people, struggling so hard to impose a shape on life when life has no shape, could begin to understand.

I love feeling the rhythm of other people's lives. It's like traveling.

But I have my life, I’m living it. It’s twisted, exhausting, uncertain, and full of guilt, but nonetheless, there’s something there.

When things get really bad, you take comfort in the placeness of a place.

It occurred to me that if I were a ghost, this ambiance was what I'd miss most: the ordinary, day-to-day bustle of the living. Ghosts long, I'm sure, for the stupidest, most unremarkable things.

Everything in life has some good in it. And when something awful happens, the goodness stands out even more--it's sad, but that's the truth.

When someone tells you something big, it's like you're taking money from them, and there's no way it will ever go back to being the way it was. You have to take responsibility for listening.

Why were we so far apart, even when we were together? It was a nice loneliness, like the sensation of washing your face in cold water.

...there's nothing wrong with being a little hopeful. Who says you can't warm your frozen limbs in the faint heat of a flicker of hope?

Nakajima’s past would always be there, so the foundation could crumble at any moment. That’s what happens, I realized, when people destroy other people.

Just being with Nakajima made me feel as if we were detached from history, and had no particular age.

God is willing to walk the earth again incarnate in us.

The only way to survive after death is by breathing life into the universe before death.

The idea that the Lord had given us a present, that the world is a gift from God... well, the amount of stuff, back then, that the Lord was giving away was limited. We do not have dominion.

I was a pretty nice kid. Kind of quiet, but quiet in terms I wasn't going out and setting fire to anything. I had a big mouth and I was creative type, you know.

This idea of selfishness as a virtue, as opposed to generosity: That, to me, is unnatural.

Wars are like deaths, which, while they can be postponed, will come when they will come and cannot be finally avoided.

Do not, do not, do not books for ever hammer at people like perpetual bells? When, between two books, silent sky appears: be glad

I see Sandy Barr got himself a $4 haircut...$1 for each side.

Please don't invent a debt that does not exist, or next you will be trying to feel gratitude - and that is the treacherous first step toward complete moral degradation.

Uh, folks, I think that’s our boat trying to kill us. (Scott)