What a midwesterner he was, a thoroughly unhip guy with his heart in the usual place, on the sleeve, in plain sight.
Charles BaxterAt least with pets, and for all I know, people too, intelligence and quick-wittedness have nothing to do with a talent for being loved, or being kind, nothing at all, less than nothing.
Charles BaxterThe problem with love and God, the two of them, is how to say anything about them that doesnโt annihilate them instantly with the wrong words, with untruth. . . . In this sense, love and God are equivalents. We feel both, but because we cannot speak clearly about them, we end upโwordless, inarticulateโby denying their existence altogether, and, pfffffft, they die.
Charles Baxter