Nothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency.

i want to give up my bearings, slip out of who i am, shed everything, the way a snake discards old skin.

you say you have no courage, but i see it in you. what you did, the burden you agreed to shoulder, took courage. for that, i honor you.

James Parkinson. George Huntington. Robert Graves. John Down. Now this Lou Gehrig fellow of mine. How did men come to monopolize disease names too?

Soon, he would become an adult. And when he did, there would be not going back because adulthood was akin to what his father had once said about being a war hero: one you became one, you died one.

these random unkind moment that catch you wen you least expect them.

He scarcely knew who was battling whom, who was winning, who was losing, as though he hoped that by doggedly ignoring the war it would return the favor

In my experience, men who understand women seem to rarely want to have anything to do with them.

He used to wonder how such a frail little body could house so much joy, so much goodness. It couldn't. It spilled out of her, came pouring out her eyes.

I would have told them that he lived a life lacking in purpose or direction. Like those aimless rides I took him on. A life lived from the backseat, observed as it blurred by. An indifferent life.

A spectacularly foolish and baseless faith, against enormous odds, that a world you do not control will not take from you the one thing you cannot bare to lose.

I only please myself. I figure I'm just one of many people. I'm not that different from anybody else and I don't have great language - I'm very ordinary.

Be true to love where ever you find it, and be true to yourself and everything that you really are.

I'm a sworn enemy of convention. I despise the conventional in anything, even the arts.

When your opponent sets up a straw man, set it on fire and kick the cinders around the stage. Don't worry about losing the Strawperson- American community vote.

You're quite tall.' Just what a girl wants to be reminded of.

And I am a weapon of massive consumption And it's not my fault, it's how I'm programmed to function.

A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world, as a public indecency.

Input of public judgement for any major tax reform.

As an historical novelist - there are few jobs more retrospective.

A fairly young, intelligent-looking man with long hair asked me whether filming or being filmed could do harm, whether it could destroy a person. In my heart the answer was yes, but I said no.