What molds us is what maims us.

Grief, I swear to God, doesn't live in the heart. It lives in the senses. And sometimes, all I want to do is cut off my nose so I can't smell her, hack my fingers off at the joint.

It's hard to close the door on optimistic expectations when you love someone.

Your first family is your blood family and you always be true to that. That means something. But there's another family and that's the kind you go out and find. Maybe even by accident sometimes. And they're as much blood as your first family. Maybe more so, because they don't have to look out for you and they don't have to love you. They choose to.

Chuck said, “Hey. How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” Cawley looked over at him. “I’ll bite. How many?” “Fish,” Chuck said and let loose a bright bark of a laugh.

I normally can't stand vice-free people. They conflate a narcissistic instinct for self-preservation with moral superiority. Plus, they suck the life right out of a party.

I believe so deeply in the primacy of language, in lifting your prose to the highest level you're capable of and making your words symphonic.