No matter what all your teeth and wet fingers anticipated, there was no accounting for the way that simple joy could shake you.

Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be.

Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.

In Ohio seasons are theatrical. Each one enters like a prima donna, convinced its performance is the reason the world has people in it.

if they put an iron circle around your neck I will bite it away

You your own best thing, Sethe. You are.

She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.

Was it hard? I hope she didn't die hard.'Sethe shook her head. 'Soft as cream. Being alive was the hard part.

Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

Outside, snow solidified itself into graceful forms. The peace of winter stars seemed permanent.

More it hurt more better it is. Can't nothing heal without pain, you know.

Whatever you love unconditionally will become yours.

All the strands of my life came together and I really became a man when I moved to Chicago.

A Christian man should so shine in his life, that a person could not live with him a week without knowing the gospel.

I didn't want to be big Mr. Ego walking around.

Humor is not a trick, not jokes. Humor is a presence in the world - like grace - and shines on everybody.

If there wasn't a God we would have to invent one to keep people sane.

As fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless.

I think no matter how snarky you try to be, poetry will always find a way to make a spiritual goal out of what you're doing.

You don't go to a comedy and try to laugh. You laugh in spite of yourself. You don't just come on stage and cry. Something has pushed you to cry.

The only people who have the long view are some scientists and some science fiction writers.