...he was part of a family whether he wanted to be or not, the family of humanity, more often than not a frustrating and contentious clan, flawed and often deeply confused, but also periodically noble and admirable, with a common destiny that every member shared.

There’s just something unsettling about studying your reflection. It’s not a matter of being dissatisfied with your face or of being embarrassed by your vanity. Maybe it’s that when you gaze into your own eyes, you don’t see what you wish to see—or glimpse something that you wish weren’t there.

Southerners have many fine qualities, charm and civility among them, and a sense of the tragic.

In a crunch a man's reputation never counts for as much as it ought to.

I never discuss a novel while I'm writing it, for fear that talking about it will diminish my desire to write it.

Once you have had a wonderful dog, a life without one, is a life diminished.

One of the greatest gifts we receive from dogs is the tenderness they evoke in us