To say it was a beautiful day would not begin to explain it. It was that day when the end of summer intersects perfectly with the start of fall .... [p.218 ff.]

You can’t pick up and leave everything behind because there is too much sadness in the world and not enough places to go.

I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing.

The Swedish he knew was mostly from Bergman films. He had learned it as a college student, matching the subtitles to the sounds. In Swedish, he could only converse on the darkest of subjects.

Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration?

If I had problems, I kept them to myself. I didn't make a scene.

The light was cut to lace by the trees that had grown so thick with leaves in the last few months.