Old dogs can be a regal sight. Their exuberance settles over the years into a seasoned nobility, their routines become as locked into yours as the quietest and kindest of marriages.

The belief that life was hard and often its worst battles were fought in private, that it was possible to walk through fear and come out scorched but still breathing.

Grief is what tells you who you are alone.

Near the end I asked him one night in the hospital corridor what he thought was happening, and he said, "Tell her everything you haven't said," and I smiled with relief. "There's nothing," I said. "I've already told her everything.

If writers possess a common temperament, it's that they tend to be shy egomaniacs; publicity is the spotlight they suffer for the recognition they crave.

Scratch a fantasy and you'll find a nightmare.

The flaw is the thing we love.