I won the parental lottery. Most of the kids I grew up with either came from really fractured homes, or really violent ones. I went home to a very traditional, good Irish Catholic family.

How am I supposed to let you go, that's all I'm asking. I want to hold you again, smell you, and, yes too, I just want you to fade. To please, please fade.

The loneliness of another can be shocking when it lays itself bare without warning.

Do you honestly think Lenin is any different from J.P. Morgan? That you, if you were given absolute power, would behave any differently? Do you know the primary difference between men and gods?...Gods don't think they can become men.

Life isn't happily ever after... It's work. The person you love is rarely worthy of how big your love is. Because no one is worthy of that and maybe no one deserves that burden of it, either. You'll be let down. You'll be disappointed and have your trust broken and have a lot of real sucky days. You lose more than you win. You hate the person you love as much as you love him. But you roll up your sleeves and work - at everything - because that's what growing older is.

He wanted to ask her what sound a heart made when it broke from pleasure, when just the sight of someone filled you the way food, blood, and air never could, when you felt as if you'd been born for only one moment and this, for whatever reason, was it.

Catch me on a good day, I think half of my books aren't too bad. Catch me on a bad day, I think I've never written a good line.