[T]he astonishing purity of pain, how it will not be mixed with any other sensation.

Because it is the Midwest, no one really glitters because no one has to, it's more of a dull shine, like frequently used silverware.

The point is that although love may die, what is said on its behalf cannot be consumed by the passage of time, and forgiveness is everything.

When you’re in love you don’t have to do a damn thing. You can just be. You can just stay quiet in the world. You don’t have to move an inch.

Literature is not a sack race. There aren't real winners and losers in the Republic of Letters.

I don't think that most women have to prove that they're real women. You live long enough, you graduate to being real.

At its best, fiction is not a diversion but a means of knowing the world.