When blame has been assigned, the story is over.

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 worst mistakes I've made have been the ones directed by sweet-natured hopefulness.

The problem with love and God, the two of them, is how to say anything about them that doesn’t 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 up–wordless, inarticulate—by denying their existence altogether, and, pfffffft, they die.

Literature is not an instruction manual.

Forget art. Put your trust in ice cream.

There is such a thing as the poetry of a mistake, and when you say, "Mistakes were made," you deprive an action of its poetry, and you sound like a weasel.