There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.

I thought I would lose, so I didn't prepare a speech.

The philosophical conservative is someone willing to pay the price of other people s suffering for his principles.

And so do people pass out of one's life and all you can remember of them is their humanity, a poor fitful thing of no dominion, like your own.

Longing, the hope for fulfillment, is the one unwavering passion of the world's commerce.

The theory of the teacher with all these immigrant kids was that if you spoke English loudly enough they would eventually understand.