Old as he was, he still missed his daddy sometimes.

You can't teach talent. You can't put in what God left out - but you can teach confidence.

Six months of looking for a job had made me an expert at picking out the people who, like me, were hurrying up to wait - in somebody's outer anything for a chance to make it through their inner doors to prove that you could type two words a minute, or not drool on your blouse while answering difficult questions about your middle initial and date of birth.

We get so caught up in what a man isn't. It's what he is that counts.

One should be able to return to the first sentence of a novel and find the resonances of the entire work.

It's as if I've arrived in a place where it's all spirit and no body -- an overwhelming sense of calm . . . I actually began to feel blessed.

Contempt mates well with pity.