Come to think of it, just about every tool was shaped like either a weenie or a pistol, depending on your point of view.

There's always a part of your nation's history that you haven't been told that... has a powerful impact on how you yourself may behave and may believe.

You can’t replace people you love with other people…But you can trust that you’re not going to run out of people to love.

The loudest sound on earth, she thought, is a man with nothing to do.

A person could spend most of a lifetime in retrospective terror, thinking of all the things one nearly didn't do.

The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.

For time and eternity there have been fathers like Nathan who simply can see no way to have a daughter but to own her like a plot of land. To work her, plow her under, rain down a dreadful poison upon her. Miraculously, it causes these girls to grow. They elongate on the pale slender stalks of their longing, like sunflowers with heavy heads. You can shield them with your body and soul, trying to absorb that awful rain, but they'll still move toward him. Without cease they'll bend to his light.