all the time something within her was crying for a decision. She wanted her life shaped now, immediately — and the decision must be made by some force — of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality — that was close at hand

What you have felt and thought will by itself invent a new style, so that when people talk about style they are always a little astonished at the newness of it, because they think that it is only style that they are talking about, when what they are talking about is the attempt to express a new idea with such force that it will have the originality of the thought.It is an awfully lonesome business, and, as you know, I never wanted you to go into it, but if you are going into it at all, I want you to go into it knowing the sort of things that took me years to learn.

but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game

And in the end, we were all just humans...Drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness.

A big man has no time really to do anything but just sit and be big.

I have never wished there was a God to call on- I have often wished there was a God to thank.

There's no substitute for will. Sometimes you have to fake will when you don't feel it at all.