sometimes words are not big enough to contain all the feelings you are trying to pour into them.

If it had been easy for Romeo to get to Juliet, nobody would have cared. Same goes for Cyrano and Don Quixote and Gatsby and their respective paramours. What captures the imagination is watching men throw themselves at a brick wall over and over again, and wondering if this is the time that they won't be able to get back up.

Maybe if God gives you a handicap, he makes sure you've got a few extra doses of humor to take the edge off.

I imagine having that sixth sense, the certainty that what I'm looking for is within reach, even if it's still hidden.

I think my writing has become "cleaner."

Chicken,' Josie said. 'Have you ever been in love?' Peter looked at Josie, and thought of how they had once tied a note with their addresses to a helium balloon and let it go in her backyard, certain it would reach Mars. Instead, they had received a letter from a widow who lived two blocks away. 'Yeah,' he said. 'I think so.

She understood how a world jammed with phones, email, and faxes could still leave you feeling utterly alone.