Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves - that's the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives - experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time anyone else has been so caught up and so pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before. Then we learn our trade, well or less well, and we tell our two or three stories - each time in a new disguise - maybe ten times, maybe a hundred, as long as people will listen.

It's all life is. Just going 'round kissing people.

Often a man can play the helpless child in front of a woman, but he can almost never bring it off when he feels most like a helpless child.

She wanted to crawl into his pocket and be safe forever.

I'm a cynical idealist.

This is what I think now: that the natural state of the sentient adult is a qualified unhappiness.

There are no second acts in American lives.