...he thought of dying as a kind of adventure, something new that he hadn't yet experienced. Like an unusual vacation trip.

My family can always tell when I'm well into a novel because the meals get very crummy.

How plotless real life was!

The Amateur Marriage grew out of the reflection that of all the opportunities to show differences in character, surely an unhappy marriage must be the richest.

While armchair travelers dream of going places, traveling armchairs dream of staying put.

Try Jesus, you won't regret it, a billboard read.

I mean you're given all these lessons for the unimportant things--piano-playing, typing. You're given years and years of lessons in how to balance equations, which Lord knows you will never have to do in normal life. But how about parenthood? Or marriage, either, come to think of it. Before you can drive a car you need a state-approved course of instruction, but driving a car is nothing, nothing, compared to living day in and day out with a husband and raising up a new human being.