If there is an amateur reader still left in the world - or anybody who just reads and runs - I ask him or her, with untellable affection and gratitude, to split the dedication of this book four ways with my wife and children.

Yet a real artist, I've noticed, will survive anything. (Even praise, I happily suspect.)

I mean it's very hard to meditate and live a spiritual life in America. People think you're a freak if you try to.

There are still a few men who love desperately.

Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next.

I am always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.

The goddam movies. They can ruin you. I'm not kidding