I've been running a full marathon every year for more than 20 years, and my record is getting worse. Getting older, getting worse. It's natural.

Life's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with.

The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.

my heart would swell without warning, and tremble, and lurch with a stab of pain. I would try clamping my eyes shut and gritting my teeth, and waiting for it to pass. And it would pass -- but slowly, taking its own time, and leaving a dull ache behind.

Narratives have the same power, I think. Some readers of my novels ask me, "Why do you understand me?". That's a huge pleasure of mine because it means that readers and I can make our narratives relative.

I was feeling lonely without her, but the fact that I could feel lonely at all was consolation. Loneliness wasn't such a bad feeling. It was like the stillness of the pin oak after the little birds had flown off.

I'll be happy if running and I can grow old together.