You are a real find and you keep me satisfied, up to a point. After all, I'm a malcontent and you can't change that.
Charles BaxterAs the poet says, all happy couples are alike, it's the unhappy ones who create the stories. I'm no longer a story. Happiness has made me fade into real life.
Charles BaxterThe worst mistakes I've made have been the ones directed by sweet-natured hopefulness.
Charles BaxterBefore, I was always trying to make my relationships work by means of willpower and forced affability. This time I didn't have to strive for anything. A quality of ease spread over us.
Charles BaxterIt's my feeling that any writer can get an emotion into a story without being sentimental as long as the emotion is dealt with honestly, with sufficient clarity, and detail.
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